Over the last four decades, we’ve worked with thousands of retailers and brand owners and have heard why customers leave their spice packers and why they stay. We have distilled this feedback into a short guide that details how to choose a spice manufacturer and create a relationship that builds your value.
Access
We have all worked with service teams that could not make the required decision to get to a resolution. Whether because of inexperience or sheer unwillingness, this powerlessness to make the right decision at the right time very likely resulted in unnecessary time, money, and aggravation.
Compare that to when you worked with experts who were also decision-makers. Not only were problems likely solved quickly, but interactions were well-informed, and tasks were completed correctly.
The steps involved in private labeling and custom blending are numerous and can drag on forever if you do not have an expert team guiding you from one decision point to the next. From managing sample revisions and nutritional panels to coordinating bottle selection and regulatory-compliant label design, your spice and seasoning manufacturer might be better considered a Product Development Center.
Much of your direct contact with them will be spent approving blend formulations and working through packaging design. You must have access to the right people throughout this process to help facilitate speedy and accurate commercialization.
Regardless of the size of your business, you should have ready access to experts at all levels of your supplier’s organization who can quickly and confidently guide you through a process, whether new product development, order production, or fulfillment.
You should also have access to inventory levels, sales history, and custom formulas. This is a major red flag if your spice manufacturer is unwilling to divulge your custom recipes, which they pack exclusively for you.
Lastly, you should have access to your packer’s facility. Of course, food safety and security are paramount, so you don’t get a key to the building. However, you should be able to easily schedule time to watch your bottle production, visit with the product development team, or perform a quality audit.
Transparency and openness are key to growing your business; the more you grow, the more your manufacturing partner will! This should be a win-win relationship.
Flexibility (A One-Stop-Shop):
As mentioned above, there are dozens of decision points during product development and dozens more as you work through production and distribution.
In an ever-changing market, you need a partner who can work with you at all stages of your business’s evolution to coordinate the many aspects of your product lifecycle.
Within the limited scope of label production, you can find companies to provide services within these areas:
- Artistic design
- Regulatory compliance
- Recipe development
- Nutritional facts panel creation
- Printing
This is in addition to vetting various label production companies to compare costs, die sizes, materials, and capabilities such as embossing, metallic foils, textured matte, and UV finishes.
Furthermore, all elements must come together in a way your spice packer can handle on their automated labeling equipment! The coordination required to do this well is significant.
Similar complexity and niche services exist within every development, production, and distribution element. To avoid becoming mired in the operational morass, consolidate as many functions as possible within your spice manufacturer. In addition to being a trusted resource and coordinator, your packer should also be able to scale production from seasonal startup to full truckload runs. Unless there is a compelling reason (bi-coastal manufacturing facilities, for instance), managing multiple packers is inefficient, inconsistent, and expensive.
The last thing you need (regardless of size) is more supply chain complexity.
You’ll know you’ve chosen the right spice-packing partner when your team can focus on what they do best: growing your brand!
The less time you spend attending to the operational complications of development, manufacturing, and distribution, the more time you can spend on sales, marketing, and building your company’s value.
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