In the second quarter of 2021, references to the Internet of Things in the public filings of food manufacturers decreased by more than 30% year-over-year, but they continued to be significantly higher than they were five years ago.

When compared to the same time last year, mentions of the IOT Market decreased by 31% in the second quarter, according to a GlobalData analysis.

However, from July 2020 to June 2021, when GlobalData first started tracking the key issues mentioned in company filings, the frequency of sentences related to the internet of things was 170% higher.

GlobalData analyzes the text of food manufacturers' annual and quarterly reports, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reports, and other filings to find specific sentences that relate to disruptive forces that will confront businesses in the coming years. One of these subjects is the Internet of Things, and businesses that excel in these fields and invest in them are thought to be better prepared to deal with unforeseen difficulties.

Two metrics were calculated to determine whether food manufacturers' summaries and strategies include IoT more frequently. First, GlobalData looked at the percentage of businesses that mentioned the idea at least once in their filings over the past year. This was 32%, up from 16% in 2016. Second, we calculated the percentage of all sentences analyzed that mentioned the Internet of Things. Between July 2020 and June 2021, of the 50 largest employers in the food manufacturing industry, India's ITC was the one that mentioned the Internet of Things the most. GlobalData found 15 sentences in the filings of the ITC, or 0.3 percent of all sentences. The concept was mentioned the second most times by Grupo Bimbo, appearing in 0.13 percent of the bakery company's filings.

Wilmar International, a Singapore-based agri-food company, published the filing in the second quarter of 2021 that demonstrated the greatest focus on IoT among all food manufacturers. Five (0.2 percent) of the document's 2,013 sentences referred to the internet of things.

A number of sub-themes are also used by GlobalData to classify mentions of the internet of things. "ambient commerce" accounted for 40% of all sub-theme mentions by food manufacturers in the second quarter of 2021, making it the most frequently mentioned topic among these sub-themes.