First launch, done with you
I take your product from the recipe in your head to a labelled, costed, lot-coded batch on a shelf, in ShelfStep, sitting beside you. You keep the records and the app after.
Marco Soe, founder of ShelfStep
Who it is for
- A home or cottage maker with one product you already sell by hand, at a market table, a church or to friends, and no paperwork yet.
- A restaurant or kitchen with a house sauce you ladle into orders and have never bottled.
- Someone with no product yet.
- A co-packer.
- Anyone who wants the food-safety and legal calls made for them. ShelfStep keeps the records; those decisions stay yours.
Three sittings
In person in Fort Wayne or on a video call, two hours each, within two weeks.
The recipe and the pack
Your recipe in your words, the amounts read back to you, a picture of your ingredients, and three to five packs drawn in your numbers, one of them chosen. Your batch size, worked out from your first batch.
The rules and the label
Your state, where you cook, and which path your product takes, with “not yet” written down where it is true. Your label, with its net contents and an ingredient list you can print.
The cost, the lot and the shelf
A rough cost for each unit, your first lot logged with its code, the printed plan and the buyer’s sheet. If you have a buyer: the case offer and the first order.
Between sittings I read what you have entered and leave notes in the app. We are done when you open the app alone and log your second lot without me on the call.
What I need from you before sitting 1
Your recipe as you write it — add it in ShelfStep after you sign up, or bring the notebook to sitting 1 — the state you cook in, one photo of the product as you sell it today, and the name you sell under. Nothing else.
The price
Home or cottage maker
The three sittings and your first launch. ShelfStep is free while we work and for 30 days after; then Pro at $49 a month if you keep it, and you can cancel any time.
Restaurant or kitchen
The same three sittings on your house product, plus the foodservice sheet and the first case offer to one buyer you name. Studio at $99 a month after, on the same terms.
Paid up front. If we have not reached a printed label by sitting three, Marco issues a full refund through Stripe.
Your recipe stays yours — Marco sees it only to set it up with you. The service terms, one page →
The other services
Reviewed and ready
Your recipe, your trial record and your pH, put together into what a process authority asks for, in one sitting with Marco.
He sends it with you, and when the answer comes back he reads it into ShelfStep so the steps that waited on it fill in.
The classification is the process authority’s to make, not Marco’s.
Paid up front. If the sitting does not happen, Marco issues a full refund through Stripe.
Label review
One hour on your printed label draft with Marco: the name, the net contents, the ingredient order, the allergen statement, the storage line and the statement your route requires.
You leave with corrections written on the draft.
ShelfStep records who reviewed it and when; it does not approve a label.
Paid up front. If the sitting does not happen, Marco issues a full refund through Stripe.
An hour a month
For makers past their first launch: one hour with Marco each month, on whatever is next — a second product, a store, a co-packer, a price.
Cancel any time.
Billed monthly through Stripe. Cancel any time — one email to hello@shelfstep.com and it stops at the end of the month.
Your recipe stays yours — Marco sees it only to set it up with you. The service terms cover these too →
Not in this
Recipe development, label design beyond the printed draft, state filings on your behalf, and selling your product. You or a professional does each of those; ShelfStep records it.
Rather do it on your own? See the plans, or write to hello@shelfstep.com.