When it comes to ingredient sourcing, the past few years have been unpredictable for food manufacturers. As market volatility persists and supply shortages linger, a strong commitment to brand protection is critical for growth. 

“While brand trust takes a while to build, you can lose it in two seconds,” explains Jeff Zyskowski, vice president of supply chain at Ardent Mills. “Trust can be preserved by protecting your brand. That means ensuring you have a product that maintains quality, consistency, and supply continuity.”

For many, brand protection comes down to choosing the right ingredients from a partner you can trust. Securing reliable ingredient sources protects consistency and cost control — two priorities you can’t sacrifice. In an era of constant disruption, it’s time to assess your ingredient mix and consider grains and pulses as a way to meet consumer expectations and ease sourcing pressures. 

Here’s how innovating with these ingredients can help you outmaneuver global disruptors and survive volatility without compromising taste or texture.

Increases Ingredient Access and Availability

Bringing grains and pulses into the mix can help minimize the impacts of inevitable market swings and shortages that disrupt availability of foundational ingredients and erode brand trust. 

For example, “volatility in regions like West Africa is a reminder that weather and pricing fluctuations can quickly disrupt cocoa supply,” explains Zyskowski. “Having a strategy in place that prioritizes consistent, scalable ingredients — like Ardent Mills’ Cocoa Replace — gives manufacturers the ability to plan long-term while staying flexible enough to adapt to short-term disruptions. This wheat-based solution is a dependable alternative when traditional supply chains are under pressure.”

Because grains and pulses can be grown domestically and cost-effectively across multiple regions, they don’t rely on international supply chains. Easy to source locally, they eliminate the need for constant reformulation due to ingredients being swapped in and out based on availability.  “You also aren’t at the whim of tariffs, international inputs, or vessel economics that complicate sourcing,” he says. “It’s easier to keep end-to-end supply chains intact.”

Simplifies Storage and Stocking

In a time where disruptions and shortages are common, keeping product in stock is a powerful way to protect your brand. While some ingredients, like eggs, are difficult to store and have a limited shelf life, grains and pulses are easy to manage.

For some food brands, storing liquid egg became too complex. Maintaining quality can be an ongoing issue, and the sheer volume of costly refrigeration and other space constraints can be too cumbersome to manage, which is why they switched to Ardent Mills’ Egg Replace as a chickpea-based alternative.

“Products like Egg Replace and Cocoa Replace are powdered solutions,” explains Zyskowski. “They can inherently offer a much longer shelf life. That gives you versatility to keep production steady, even when markets are unstable.”

Builds an Agile Supplier Network

Flexible supply chains are about adaptability and require partners that can anticipate change and help you adapt. For example, when certain ingredients face ongoing issues, partners should be able to step in and offer alternatives to help you withstand disruptions and continue to seize growth opportunities. Suppliers with broad asset footprints have a vast network to pull from, even if weather impacts one region or source.

When ongoing market challenges make key ingredients unreliable, it’s critical to work with a supplier equipped with scale, resources, and insight to keep your business moving forward, no matter what the market brings.

Earns Consumer Trust

Beyond supply chain and cost benefits, grains and pulses play an important role in protecting — and elevating — your brand in another way: strengthening consumer trust. 

With 73% of consumers in a recent Ardent Mills survey saying they seek out products made with simple, recognizable ingredients, grains and pulses help you deliver on these demands, thanks to their familiarity and simple ingredient profiles.

“From a product-development standpoint, grains and pulses perform exceptionally well as binding agents and functional components, helping manufacturers maintain the quality and consistency consumers expect,” says Zyskowski. 

But their benefits go beyond taste and texture. They can also be:

• A good source of fiber and plant-based protein
• Rich in micronutrients
• Appreciated for their taste and texture
• Foundational and versatile
• Considered to have sustainable characteristics
• Affordable for consumers

Turn Ingredient Strategy into Brand Loyalty

Protecting your brand is about more than risk management — it’s a way to build smarter, more stable supply chains that save money and sidestep costly disruptions.

Ardent Mills has seen customers lean into Egg Replace not only to address rising egg costs and supply challenges, but also as a strategic entry point for broader supply chain reformulation. The solution continues to deliver meaningful value, helping manufacturers build more resilient and cost-effective operations—even as egg prices stabilize.

Grains and pulses can help you protect what matters most — trust, loyalty, and performance — no matter what disruptions come next.

Learn more at www.ardentmills.com.