How do I find and choose a co-packer?
Look for one that already makes something in your process category, not just your product category. Ask about minimum run size, lead time and who owns the scheduled process before you talk about price. The minimum run is usually what decides whether a co-packer is viable for you, and it is the number people ask about last.
Process category beats product category
A co-packer who makes hot sauce can probably make your hot sauce. A co-packer who hot-fills acidified products into glass can probably make your salsa, your marinade and your dressing too. The equipment and the process are what transfer, not the recipe.
So the useful question is not 'do you make sauces' but 'what is your process, what do you fill into, and what else runs on that line'.
Minimum run is the number that decides it
Most co-packers have a minimum batch size, often expressed in gallons or in finished units. That number multiplied by your cost of goods is cash you have to find before a single case sells, and it is frequently the reason a promising conversation stops.
Ask it early and ask it in units you understand. A 500 gallon minimum means nothing until you convert it to how many cases of your product that is and how many months of your current sales it represents.
Who owns the scheduled process
For an acidified product this matters enormously. Some co-packers have their own scheduled process for a product like yours and will make it under that. Others expect you to arrive with a process authority letter for your formulation.
Those are very different amounts of work and cost for you. Establish which it is in the first conversation, and get the answer in writing rather than in a phone call you half remember.
What to ask before you send a recipe
A first email that asks these gets a useful reply, and screens out the ones who say yes to everything:
- What is your minimum run, in finished cases of a product like mine?
- What is your current lead time from approved formulation to delivered pallet?
- Do you have a scheduled process for this category, or do I bring my own?
- Do you source ingredients and packaging, or do I deliver them to you?
- What certifications do you hold, and when were you last audited?
- Can you give me two customers making something similar that I can call?
Protect the recipe, sensibly
You will have to share the formulation eventually. Sending it in the first email is unnecessary, and asking for a signed agreement before a first conversation reads as difficult to a co-packer fielding many enquiries.
The workable middle is to describe the product and the process in the first message, and share the formulation once there is a real conversation and a mutual confidentiality agreement in place.
The first run will not be the last recipe
Scaling changes things. A recipe that works in a twenty-litre kettle behaves differently at five hundred gallons: reduction rates, heat-up time, how an ingredient disperses. Expect a trial run and expect to adjust.
Budget for that trial as a real cost rather than a formality, and do it before you promise a delivery date to a buyer.
Common questions
Check this yourself
This is general information for U.S. food businesses, not legal advice, and rules change. Check it against the sources below and against your own state's rules before you rely on it.