Most senior executives in food and beverage companies are making critical business decisions with distorted views of their production efficiency. In fact, two recent industry studies found that the gap between reported and actual efficiency in food plants averages 9 percent. This executive white paper summarizes the key findings from these studies. It then explores how food and beverage executives can address this performance variance issue quickly and effectively to develop real cost advantage and capture market share in one of the most difficult environments in decades.