Quick Tour or Custom Demo? How To Evaluate Food and Beverage Software the Right Way

You wouldn’t buy a car without taking it for a test drive. You wouldn’t sign off on a new piece of production equipment without watching it run. And you probably wouldn’t move into a house based solely on glossy photos and a catchy tagline.

Software should be no different—but the evaluation process often falls short, leaving companies with tools that fail to meet expectations.

Every software provider talks about efficiency, visibility and return on investment (ROI). We’ll put our hands up here, we do too. Those benefits matter, and you can read about them here. But when it comes to food and beverage software, marketing claims only get you so far. At some point, you need to see the system in action to know whether it can actually deliver.

That’s why a food software demo matters. It’s the quickest way to move past promises and see whether a system can actually handle your traceability, allergen management and real shop floor workflows. A demo shows you how the software performs when the stakes are high, not just when the messaging is polished.

So how do you engage with demos in a way that saves time, avoids frustration and leads to the right decision?

How Do You Engage With Demos the Right Way?

Most buyers will encounter two types of demos when evaluating food and beverage software. A quick, self-led option and a more in-depth, personalized experience.

This isn’t an either-or decision. In reality, the smartest buyers use both. The right choice depends on where you are in your evaluation, how complex your operation is and how aligned your internal stakeholders already are. Company size alone doesn’t tell the full story.

Most importantly, demos should reduce risk. They shouldn’t create more confusion or become a time sink for your team. When used well, they move the decision forward with clarity and confidence.

Let’s take a look at the two different types of demos.

Online, Self-Led Product Tours

An online, self-led product tour is often the first step buyers take when evaluating food and beverage software. Sometimes called an interactive product tour, it gives you a self-guided, on-demand way to explore specific capabilities without committing to a live call or sales conversation.

But what does that actually entail?

During an online product tour, you click through real screens and workflows at your own pace, seeing what the interface looks like and how it behaves. You can dig into features like quality management, production scheduling or compliance document generation and see how they actually function, not just how they’re described.

Short explanations are built directly into the experience, instead of sitting through a long sales deck. There are no meetings to schedule, no pressure to move faster than you’re ready for and no calendar gymnastics to get everyone in the same virtual room.

That simplicity is exactly why a food software demo in this format is so useful early on. It helps you:

• See whether the user interface feels intuitive for operators, planners and quality teams

• Check if key features are built into the system or rely on workarounds

• Share the tour internally without scheduling meetings or syncing calendars

• Shortlist vendors quickly before committing to a live demo

If you’re looking for a practical starting point, you can explore Aptean’s collection of interactive product tours for the food and beverage industry. These guided demos span ERP, food product lifecycle management (PLM) and transportation management (TMS) capabilities—covering areas like quality management, shop floor production, compliance documentation and transportation planning—so you can focus on the solutions that matter most to your operation.

Personalized, Expert-Led Demos

While product tours are great for getting oriented, there comes a point where you need more context and facetime with the vendor, not just the software. That’s where a personalized, expert-led food software demo earns its keep. This is a live, guided demo delivered over video, or in-person, by a subject matter expert who understands food and beverage operations and has tailored the walkthrough to your specific requirements. It’s not a one-size-fits-all script. First, there’s a discovery conversation. This gives the provider time to understand your business model, challenges and goals. The personalized food software demo is then shaped around your processes, giving you:

• An expert-led walkthrough built around your specific workflows, not sample data

• Real-world scenarios tested during the session, including edge cases

• Direct access to an expert who understands food and beverage challenges and has experience implementing software for operations like yours

• Clear answers to questions about integrations across ERP, PLM and TMS

• Insight into how the system handles complexity across multiple facilities and evolving regulatory requirements

Just as important, you get a sense of the team behind the software. Their confidence, experience and familiarity with real-world food and beverage operations often say as much as the screens they’re sharing. If you’re ready for that level of insight, you can book a personalized food ERP demo directly through Aptean’s website. These sessions highlight not only the software itself but also the value of Aptean’s by-your-side support and deep industry expertise.

What Core Features Should You Look for in a Food and Beverage Software Demo?

Demos can be impressive. They can also be overwhelming. That’s why it helps to be prepared with a checklist of things to look out for. Then the demo is truly a test, not simply a shiny presentation. So, what should be on that list so you can adequately evaluate your shortlisted vendors? Rather than focusing on polish alone, look for signals that the software is built for the realities of food and beverage operations, such as:

• Depth and Relevance of Functionality: Are the features designed specifically for food and beverage, or are they retrofitted from generic software? Purpose-built matters when compliance, traceability and profitability are on the line.

• Ease of Use and UI Clarity: Does the user interface look intuitive for people on the shop floor as well as in the office, or does it feel like it would require heavy training to get value?

• End-to-End Integration: Can you see how the software connects with related systems such as ERP, TMS, customer relationship management (CRM) or overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), or does everything live in silos that will need manual workarounds later?

• Alignment With Business Goals: Can the system support growth, new product lines or regulatory changes without major rework, or does it feel rigid?

• Configurability and Flexibility: Does the software adapt to your processes, or will your processes need to adapt to it? Can it be configured to reflect your business language, currencies and product SKUs, and will it still give you the flexibility to make changes as your business evolves?

• Team Experience and Understanding: Evaluate the team running the demo. Do they understand the food and beverage industry, or are they simply clicking through screens? Experience shows up quickly when you ask the right questions.

If a demo of food manufacturing ERP, PLM or any other mission-critical software can clearly answer most of these questions, it’s doing its job. And if it can’t, that’s useful too. It tells you early on whether the system is worth taking to the next step.

The Best Demo Is the One That Tells the Truth

At the end of the day, demos cut through marketing noise and show how software actually performs.

Smart buyers don’t rely on a single format. They combine quick, self-led product tours with deeper, personalized demos to build confidence at every stage of the decision, and with every stakeholder involved. Taking the time to evaluate properly reduces long-term risk and cost, especially in an industry where mistakes are expensive.

Whether you start with an interactive product tour or move straight to a personalized food software demo, the goal is the same: confidence that the system will perform in production.

Aptean believes in transparency. That means encouraging you to explore the software firsthand and decide whether it fits the reality of your food and beverage operation, not just the promise.

Why not start by exploring our collection of self-guided food and beverage ERP product tours here? Or, if you’re ready to dive deeper, speak to one of our industry experts by booking your personalized demo consultation today.