Lineage Survey: Most Food and Beverage Firms Say AI Investments Are Paying Off
A survey of 1,000 North American food and beverage supply-chain decision-makers finds 72 percent facing rising demand, and roughly three in five reporting positive impact from data and AI investments.
Cold-chain operator Lineage has released its 2026 Cold Chain Insights Survey, covering 1,000 supply-chain decision-makers in the North American food and beverage industry, first published October 22 and covered by FleetOwner on October 26. Among respondents, 72 percent report rising demand over the past year while 66 percent say their supply chains have struggled to keep pace, and 47 percent cite a need for flexible storage capacity. On technology, about three in five say data and AI investments have had a positive impact, with 24 percent reporting returns that exceeded the investment and another 62 percent seeing returns at or near parity.
The survey also points to machine-learning applications already in commercial use, such as models predicting pallet dwell time in warehouses. As the world's largest cold-chain operator, Lineage has a commercial stake in the narrative, so the figures are best read as vendor-reported market data rather than independent research. Even with that caveat, the results indicate that AI in food warehousing has moved past the pilot stage in mature markets, with buyers increasingly expecting measurable cost savings rather than dashboards.