Severe weather events show no signs of decelerating amid climate change, and it's causing food and beverage companies to rethink their operations.

So far this year, the US has experienced 23 natural disasters with losses totaling over $1 billion each, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which has tracked billion-dollar disasters since 1980. That figure breaks the record set in 2020.

"It has been striking that just for the first eight months of this year we’ve had 23 confirmed billion-dollar-or-higher impact events related to weather and climate impact extremes," NOAA climatologist Adam Smith told Yahoo Finance Live (video above). "The frequency of these events is rapidly escalating."

Whether it's wildfires and drought in the West or hurricanes in the Southeast, these events are creating a perfect storm for food and beverage businesses, as they face increasing costs from commodities and rebuilding damaged infrastructure.

"I think that executives, other officers that are planning out in the future, ... if they're wise, they're looking at how we're having wetter wet events, drier dry events," Smith said. "Really, the hydrologic cycle is being amplified, which means more volatility in your baseline expectation of commodities."

Here's what top executives at some of the largest food and beverage companies had to say about their sustainability goals and how they're adapting to climate challenges.

Chipotle CFO: 'We don't know' where climate challenges will be

Building a sustainable Mexican grill business means serving up burritos with fresh ingredients daily. But for Chipotle (CMG), there's growing uncertainty around securing high-quality produce, and its leadership relies on a regionally diversified range of ingredient partnerships.

"From a produce standpoint, from an ingredient standpoint, ... we don't know where the climate challenges are going to be," Chipotle CFO Jack Hartung told Yahoo Finance in July. "And sometimes, it's storms in a certain area of the country or it could be heat in a certain area of the country. And so the best thing we can do is ... we have long-term partnerships with our folks."

The fast-casual restaurant chain is also managing heightened utility costs as extreme temperatures make it harder to keep restaurants cool.

"We're seeing our utility costs up," Hartung said. "And also, when you have this kind of heat and you're putting this much pressure on your HVAC, you have breakdowns as well. So our [maintenance and repair costs are] a little higher as well."