Autograph Manufacturing Contract Made Easy

Autograph manufacturing contract

hi you're watching start two souls and I'm Emily Paige we're here with Melissa kaliesha and she is an expert in food safety which is a topic that we as brand owners in the food and beverage space need to know a lot about but sometimes it's intimidating and so we thought we would invite an expert to be able to talk to us today thank you so much Melissa for being here thank you for asking me Emily I'm delighted well so for everyone who doesn't know melissa she not only is a chief science officer at food micro labs which is a lab that does all that testing a little testing on the microbes and your food to make sure that everything is clean and safe but she also is the chief science officer and owner of food safety solutions which is the consultancy so you had strategy that you need to figure out shelf-life or solve and troubleshoot problems she's the girl to go to and her company so today what we want to talk about specifically is picking a contract manufacturer in the food and beverage space so if you're an emerging brand owner and you want to figure out how to pick the right person and make sure that they're gonna make safe food we want to hear from Melissa what questions to ask your contract manufacturer to make sure that you're going to be food safe so Melissa what should we ask our contract manufacturer and what should we be looking for well I think the most important thing to start with is to start with understanding of what regulatory category you're going to fall under that your products kind of fall under because once you know that the co-packer that's given that you use that utilize is really going to be tailored and have to have expertise and experience in that regulatory arena so for example if you have a if your product is a chicken enchilada and it is the best chicken chicken enchilada or that you've ever tasted and that you you would want anybody ever to taste you would want to go with a a co-packer a processor who is under USDA grant of inspection and has had experience in assemble foods USDA assemble products that are ready to eat or heat treated not fully cook not shelf-stable depending on what your product is and so that's one of the most important things to lead with do I need to be with a firm that's under USDA meat and poultry do I need to be with a co-packer who has who has cannery experience and it has processed under food and drug instead of fight food rule if I have a hot sauce that I want to process you know that's the most important thing and then you work out from there so for everybody who is new to this space so that means in in very layman's terms it means that manufacturers who make a beverage similar to type of beverage that you want will be experts already in that category because they're gonna be legally monitored to in all the products of their manufacturing so you want to start by figuring out hey what am I making let's find a condiment back should make something similar and when Melissa's talking about categories she's talking about the regulatory bodies that regulate each category sorter it's frozen food but its shelf stable which means it's like dry goods there's thing on the not refrigerated basically unrefrigerated foods or refrigerated foods deli and USDA is the meat the in poultry category so when you pick your category of product you find a contract manufacturer making similar things because they will be regulated by the category of product that you're making did i summarized that correctly yes okay so once we figure out what our category is and we find a similar number of different manufacturers that make those types of products what questions should we ask them to make sure that they are going to be able to make our products safely well I think the most important thing is to ask them what other types of product that are similar to yours are that they make and also ask them questions about what their standing is with regulatory do your homework and search on the FDA USDA websites for recalls that pertain to that manufacturer just so you know not that good manufacturers haven't had recalls but you would want to go in and understand what their history has been and what their experience has been and oftentimes companies that have had recalls actually make the safest food because they have gone through the wringer they've experienced an unexpected issue and they've corrected it so that doesn't mean that you wouldn't work with them but just go in knowing what their history is and also know ask them questions about it so that you can be upfront and open about it make sure that you know who your master is who your regulatory body is and that they're in good standing and then then comes then comes their key questions as far as who you wish to sell to right because there's the regulatory body that that governs the type of food you manufacture is the foundational piece of it that's necessary to legally operate safely and properly but then then there's that okay who do I want to sell to do I want to sell to Costco to I want to sell to trade shows all the Whole Foods who do I want to sell to and and then what we do is look at what their requirements are right because you always want to know who our master is and it's very important to know that because different companies whether they're restaurant chains or whether they're supermarkets or whether they're other types of entities they're gonna have their own requirements and their requirements are going to be oftentimes much usually beyond what the regulatory requirements are you know so could those be a third party audits third party audits - current GMP standards and regulatory standards they could potentially be a worldwide global food safety initiative GFSI standard that's a worldwide standard the the retailers and other industry stakeholders have agreed on the criteria that are standardized around the world so that schemes audit schemes like when you somebody asked you oh do you have in sqf audit or do you have a PRC audit those are audits that are under that worldwide scheme that have criteria that are foundational for control of food safety food quality meeting customer requirements and all those things and so the company that you wish to sell to your end customer or customers you really need to work backwards to understand and to identify which audit body type of audit and depth of audit and audit body you would select for your for your manufacturing your product right so everyone is watching so another way of looking at it is that to manufacture products in mass production you have to have a process and every step of that process when we need action food can create risk for contamination of that food and so when a person you know an employee doesn't those bathroom doesn't wash their hands correctly or when chicken is coming into a different facility if it's not completely been temperature controlled from the delivery of the poultry place in a frozen food truck all the way to the place where it's being mixed together at the factory you want to be sure that whoever you work with has thought through every single step of that process so that you don't get any risk so good factories have written down processes to make sure that I'm even the smartest person will forget a step if we do it every day so really good factories have strong practices standard operating practices that they must document and submit to whoever their governing body is so they will have those things on record they can even sometimes be inspected by you some of it is considered private proprietary information because it's the way that they wrap their you know smacking your plan but you want to be able to know that a factory has those things in place but if you're a beginner you won't know those things you won't be able to there are there processes to make sure that there are safe from pain so these governing bodies put it a list of what needs to be done for a factory to be state it by certain standard and there's high no good better best type of standards and so that's what Melissa is talking about here and so Melissa so the the minimum is going to be food safe right any factor you work with for food it has to have food safety certifications is there any certification that we should ask for or how do we make sure that the factory or the kitchen we're going to work with this food safe well I think each and every one of them that operates under either regulatory or third-party standards in addition to regulatory must operate a food safety plan either a hasip hazard analysis critical control points for for products under that requirement regulatory requirement or else a food safety plan and that is the systematic evaluation of the process and all the potential biological and chemical physical radiological hazards that could occur relative to the process and so each one of those audit schemes and the regulatory bodies require that as a foundation so if you wanted to if you were looking at a co-packer potential co-packer what you might want to do is first start by asking if you can review their food safety plan or an asset plan that would pertain to the product like yours so you can understand generally the process what they've identified as their potential hazards and how they're controlling them you can ask about regulatory outcomes of regulatory food safety assessments or audits you can also to help you understand how how robust the food safety plans and asset plans are you can actually ask for third party audit reports so don't be afraid to ask the potential prospective co-packer hey can I see a copy of your full audit report your sq or BRC or whatever third party audit firm that you used may I see your latest a copy of the latest report and in there is going to be an evaluation of their food safety plans and also their quality systems that pertain to the product and control measures for supplier controls on the ingredient controls process controls environmental and facilities controls shelf-life sanitation had too much all those things are going to be covered in an evaluation a good third party audit and so you can kind of read that and see where they can form their complied and maybe where they haven't and where they have work to do one thing to to bear in mind when you're looking at such an audit report is every firm every co-packer that you would consider and every food manufacturer for that matter is really in a process sort of a continuum a quality food safety journey so systems aren't perfect and we can't expect them to be perfect but in a system when something isn't as we wish it to be or isn't adequate a systems approach to correcting that is is what you're looking for how do they respond to feedback and how are they controlling things that have been identified as potential concerns in your food safety or quality systems yes so for every layperson you know who's listening to Melissa what she's describing is let me to explain it in a story you were doing some products for target and a factory had not yet gone into sqf to our certified had not become sqf to certified so they had her having their big audit and they had an audit report and we were waiting to make this product for target they couldn't do it until they had this audit and they passed it and what happened is the report came back and there was flags floors flags and things that they had to fix and we thought oh my gosh our first interpretation of of so many flags of a not passing report meant that they were a bad factory that we were at high risk and what did this mean because it sounded terrible for them to not get such a high score and we ended up learning more about it and realizing that it just meant that there were small things that they need to change in their process to be able to meet certain standards it was something silly like a drain needed to be covered in a different way nothing that was putting at risk you know for the in a normal situation putting your product at risk it was just they were had to comply to very very high stringent standards to keep everything safe and then the next step was for them to go through and fix these flags and resubmit beery inspected and once they passed it they were ready to go and the target buyer was very experienced in it so they were not put off by the fact that this happened and you just resubmitted it delayed our manufacturing by about a month but we ended up being able to afford the same factory we did a wonderful job they had a great score and their final on it and so as a newbie it's it's a very food safety can be scary and so we talk about these things and we're talking about pathogens and risks and it's we're just really covering this that you know that this is our job as food professionals to understand the risks - you know pre predict them and try to prevent them and that's why we talk about the worst case scenario why we want these kind of audits and flags and why we need them but we shouldn't you know run around like a chicken without our head cut off getting too afraid we just this is about being responsible and about making plans and so um what she's just melissa is describing is that every factory will have flags every factory will have things that they're working on every factory will not you know maybe need to go through the audit twice but that's not a bad factory signal it just means this is what we do we're professionals we're constantly trying to improve did I say that right yes I think so and then one of the other things you can do is is ask the prospective co-packer can I see your corrective action because they're required to complete those and close them out the audit firm and so asked about those so you have confidence that those have been remedied and things that are bigger Capitol items whatever might take longer to remedy and they might still be in the process of remedying some of them so this be aware that it's a great thing to understand when you're when you're reviewing somebody for relationship kind of future relationship yes and I think the other thing too I would throw out there is someone I've contacted many different factories and I think just like with dating you know you start a relationship with a factory asking fun questions like do you make this product talking about the future what's possible okay we're trying to get this into into Whole Foods and this is the product you want to focus on those things and then you want to ask them you know how how high about what kind of s what kind of food safety standards do you adhere to what is the highest certifications to eat receive may I see those certifications but if you ask too early in the process can I inspect your audits can I get your corrective action sometimes you can slow down the process and scare them away especially if you're a newbie and you don't know what you're doing and they have no the more effort that they put into addressing your eyeball questions it can delay them and there's no guarantee even getting a sale so you kind of want to court your your contract manufacturer just as much as you're courting someone you want to have a relationship with these it's a relationship of both trust and building rapport on both sides and so you're asking those questions in a respectful way so even if you see some flag and then audit you know you don't to like freak out and call them and get angry or upset you want to be they're doing you a favor by working with you and you're doing them a favor by being a business partner with them and so it needs to be something where you're asking these questions to build trust and done in a really respectful of lifting way you know trusting way where you're building trust but asking questions at the same time because I've seen some people Lee's contract relationships with great factories just because they got to they were not knowledgeable about the audits and they they got a little too carried away and worth and how they handled some of these questions because they're kind of personal they're personal about a factories livelihood and their business and this is their profession and so you want to be respectful and ask these questions just to know that they I think asking about their food safety audits indicates that you're knowledgeable that that's important indicates that you have standards for who you're gonna work with it also is important for you to be able to know that your retailer will ask those things and so it's important to ask that out loud you know clean your date you know do you want to have kids okay you got to ask that question to make sure you're on the same page but it's not um it's not something where you're cements we're not giving this knowledge to brand owners to be able to poke holes in a factory most factories are doing a great job and you just want to be sure that everything's out on the playing field and that you're knowledgeable and you're showing that you're knowledgeable upfront so right right yeah and one of the other things to Emily that I think is so important is when you look at a third party audit may have third party means it's elective right there that firm that co-packer is paying to have a third party objective knowledgeable expert person come in and evaluate their systems and so as part of those systems audits the ones we talked about sqf and PRC are the most common in the United States here and when you when you look at those audits those audits are the co-packer is is audited in pertaining to a certain food category and you want to look at the food category and make sure that's consistent with yours you know if you have somebody who a co-packer that you're evaluating and they're approved for the four entrees and ready meals and your your shopping and your product is a beverage product and and that's not included in their scope of their products that they're certified for then you want to look at that that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of co-packers out there that could do a that is divergent from what they've been doing and because that's how they grow but if you want to know if you're the first one in that new category because sometimes that can be a little bit I can relate things a little bit and you just need to know that that the categories that you're they're being audited to are consistent with your product I love that you said that because I recently was importing some products for clients and they were FDA certified in like health the health category and just for like on food but they were not certified for this it was a product those classified under a medical school and so anyway we we thought they were completely fine but we found out as we're importing it because the product was held at the was held and eventually destroyed because we couldn't we didn't it wasn't worth it for us to get this very high level of inspection we couldn't do it not out of time that we needed we have to go to a different facility so they and the facility was certified in other categories but not in our category and so we end up having to the store product so I think it's so smart that you brought that up that was a painful learning thing that I had to pay for and hard way so one thing that you keep talking about that I think is so good we should get digging a little bit deeper and I'd love to even write this out as a list so as we we are growing when we first launched a product we might find a contract manufacturer that has one level of standards like there's their food safe and so they can make a product and we can begin selling it in coffee shops or smaller environments that is a certain level of food safety that we need to be able to meet but if we actually want to be able to sell things to Costco or Target those massive big-box retailers actually have very high standards and so could you kind of explain and if you don't have if you're not making stuff at that Factory than you are can even be considered and so you'd either have to move your your product to a facility that is a capable of servicing those large retailers or have your code back or go through an audit so it's kind of important to know how your the retailer like the requirement that these retailers would would give so could you kind of explain the small guy minimum certificates so we could write them out as a list and then what are the big guy minimum certificates yes yes well small guys small restaurant chains small retailers things like that they often will just have the the fundamental requirement that you have to meet regulatory requirements so as a basis for all the systems all legal manufacturing wholesale manufacturing of foods you need to meet the regulatory criteria as a foundation so then you you may have which it which by the way include food safety include foods got to be safe that's gotta be wholesome it's gotta meet labeling requirements it's gotta meet Good Manufacturing Practice requirements for facilities equipment grounds training personnel handling and all those sorts of things because storage controls receiving transport controls so those are the foundational regulatory and then when it comes to meeting customer requirements beyond the regulatory food safety also food quality there are requirements for customer specific and those might be things like in that are covered and emphasized more in the sqf and PRC no third party audits which have to do with the agreements with specifications so in your ingredient specifications and finished product specifications they need to be agreed with that process or that customer so that they agree that and you agree on mutual criteria for that food that you're going to sell them and that you operate and you set up your system so that you operate and can consistently deliver food that needs those food safety and food quality standards for example so let's give let's give an example so we talk about target for example they had an sqf to certification requirement and in order to be able to meet that they also had to be audited by a third party so that's example so if I was contacting a manufacturer and I said hey know if you're a newbie and you don't know how to ask the question you don't know what to ask for you can say hey I'm interested in selling to target do you have certifications that would meet those requirements and some some contract manufacturer will reply back we've actually not only gotten sqf certifications third party audit but we also have a target specific or a Costco specific audit which is a really great sign that this company would be safe to work with although they normally have very high minimums and so they wouldn't want to work with you unless you can bring the volume because they're they have to pay a lot of money for these audits and but so what other types of because what I want to do is tell people like a shorthand email that they could write to their contract manufacture to decide whether or not that factory will work for them in the small guy category or whether they will work for them in the big guy category yes so so really start from begin with the end in mind if you have a product that is a chilli let's say it's a chilli product and you you know that you're who you're going to be targeting to sell to is going to be a Wendy's restaurant chain what you would do is send send a message if you're crafting an email to that prospective co-packer you would say hey I are chilli product is where we really want to end up with it is selling it into restaurant chains in a particular who we're targeting is Wendy's or we're targeting Wendy's and islands or whatever or whatever it is we that's Andy and then you can say do you have you ever provided anything into Wendy's do you do you mean Wendy's criteria and that's a legitimate question because most retailers for their restaurant whether they're retail supermarkets or whatever they might have in a requirement for GFSI as qf e rc as we're saying and then they also may have you know Costco or Wendy's or or Whole Foods they may have addendums to those GFSI those sqf and PRC audits that are specific requirements that are required for approval for that co-packer need to manufacture food for that that an end a customer and so the addendum is what you do when you go through a three-day qualification you know sqf audit for example you you that you can use for anybody any end customer who's who has sqf as their third-party criterion or GFSI as a third-party maintained but if that customer is Costco and they and they have additionally had a requirement for an addendum for specific audit criteria that you've got a mean to satisfy Costco then that co-packer would have to have not only that sqf audit and be conforming with it in maybe but they would also have to have that addendum for Costco for example so those are the lead with whomever it is you wish to really sell that product into that's a the best idea because then then a you can work with that that co-packer and if you decide that you're gonna sell that chili into wendy's and they meet the Wendy's criteria and they are already have gone through a third party audit with an addendum and they're already in good standing and you decide and you get an another account for another restaurant chain or a retail company that you don't have an addendum with then when you're working and you later get that account then that Co pad Aaron is going to have to make the decision you know what what can I can I do I want to have another addendum audit and do I want to meet those criteria so when you ask them when you're first starting out okay what who do you who's whose criteria do you currently me who's what addendums if any do you have what third party audit scheme if any do you meet and that way you can kind of get an idea okay yeah they meet the addendum for Costco they need addendum for Wendy's they meet the addendum for public I went and so you have an idea that they have several that they meet and you don't at this point if you don't know who you're in customer finally is all of who they're going to be you might have to discover along the way through your sales channels you know what criteria are required for that ultimate customer that you'll have to meet in the future right can you so can you give me an example of what type of things they would be looking for in us in the addendum is it I think it's what they had is that they had a minimum requirement for how high you had to pass your audit is for G if isn't but yes so for example somebody on something like a Wendy's on it you have to have where the where your product includes a meat or poultry item you have to have a questionnaire and questions and satisfy requirements for animal welfare for example okay they might pick just certain things they might be related to the specifications that the company has they might be related to specific metal detector standard sizes that you've got to run through your metal detector and there might be maximum size limits that you can that you have to meet and so it'll be in the addendum there'll be specific requirements that that customer that retailer that customer has that says hey it's gotta meet this criteria right right okay and so for for the brand owner listening to that that all sounds very intimidating probably because there's so much that you probably don't know but the good news is that number one that you can rely under contact manufacturer to help you so the goal is to up to disclose to this contract manufacturer what your goals are again it's very similar to dating like you're trying to disclose what your desires are my goals are the this thing I've got this recipe I'm trying to make this to sell it into this type of us store and customer attended this my intended use are you do you have experience with manufacturing these types of products what are the audit levels that you have that you have met you can ask them if they've ever worked for similar companies and what addendums or secondary audits they might have already met and the contract manufacturer will tell you what those things are and so you don't have to memorize every single thing up front and worry about it but that's the place that you've starts if you're talking to let's say you've already gone to a trade show Nisa is showing a product before you have it mass-produced and you get interest from Trader Joe's or from some retail buyer you can ask them what their standards are and if they will tell it to you and then you can bring it to different contact manufactures to see if they've already met those standards so it can be a two-way street if you have retail interest you can ask for regional buyer what their minimums are and the same is true with and your contr clean facts you can say this is my target retailer what minimums have you met that would allow us to be able to work with them so that's very very empowering um I all that stuff is so helpful I think what we'll do is we'll add to the blog where we this video is posted like a template email that they can write and send in it will help them to kind of articulate some of these things because gif aside GMP these are a lot of buzzwords that are new for people and a little intimidating the one other thing I don't think we've covered very very well is the oddball type of my oddball but they're unique call-outs that sometimes we want to be able to put on our product so for example organic products kosher products halal products those types of things are actually audit the factory needs to be able to manufacture those things so could you speak to those unique call-outs and how to kind of ask that question of your contractor and think someone who eats those things yes it's a great question and so if you if you're planning on having your product meet one of those what we call identity preservation requirements for kosher or organic or non-gmo or whatever you can ask them that's a you would ask them similar to the other criteria you would ask them if they already process any products that are certified organic that are kosher non-gmo no those types of things and see if they are already doing that because if they're already doing that they're already aware of the criteria and it would be a matter of adding your product to the mix and it's a crazy yeah it's a pretty easy transition and again you know when you're looking at the your potential contract of Packer manufacture they their business is is obviously to to have more customers and so they're usually very incentivized to add let's call them credentials right audit credentials or recognitions or certifications or inspection criteria they're incentivized to do that because then they can get more business and so as long as what you're doing isn't so divergent from anything they've already done they're usually very open to seeing their credentials so that they can attract more business and retain more business yes yes I think I think those specific call outs is identity call-outs are sort of they're a little rigorous especially for example kosher you have to have specific rooms that are dedicated specific spots where they put the ingredients in a separate part of the factory and so it's not often that a factory that does not yet have those certifications will want to jump on board and get them for you if you're a small emerging brands because they do a lot of work to be able to make it happen so even if you could convince them it might even take a year for them to you know have a rabbi come and inspect and the same is true with hello there's a lot of very rigorous standards so it is smart to think through your intended use and what kind of call out some claims you want to make upfront and that we put that in the inquiry email to your contract manufacturer and sometimes you know we had one product where we were making a tea product and it was manufactured at a factory that had kosher certifications and the ingredients were also kosher and so the product was technically could be kosher but we would have had to pay you to pay a certain fee to be able to get that kosher certificate applied to your to your product if you resubmit it and the same is true with the UM we did a product that was organic had all organic ingredients followed all the processes it was an organic product but to be able to get the bug the the little sticker that goes on the very front that says this is organic we had to pay a few thousand dollars to go through the process of just at the application and the very beginning of the front we determined who would not apply to either kosher or organic certifications even though we met all the requirements because we want to pay for it we want to make sure the product would sell first it wasn't the main reason why people will be buying the product once it was a wild success we went back and reapplied for those certifications to be applied to this product specifically and that being very positive like it was a great thing you could announce to people like we've always had the best premier ingredients they were organic we just hadn't got certification because of this popularity you've gone through the process and now you can see that sticker on the very front so that's something else to keep in mind for everybody that when you're scaling it's important to scale appropriately and think that stuff strategically through minimise your expenses and but think about your intended future use you don't have to do everything up front and I think that's one other thing to keep in mind with what Melissa was saying about factories that have all of these u.s. qx2 certifications or Target audits if you're just getting off the ground though factories probably have massive minimum order quantity requirements and they've paid a ton of money to be that rigorous and they're the certifications and it is okay to start with one factory but maybe doesn't have the ability or capacity to work with target or isn't currently working with target but they have high standards we have sqf certification or they're they're able to help you meet those minimums and then in the future once you run with them you can scale to an even larger factory that's able to do really massive quantities so that's that's another way that you can think of scaling some factories that aren't as experienced working from big-box retailers will take lower minimums and are more open to small emerging brands because they want to build their business and so you can always think of things as a scale as long as things are meeting your food safety minimum requirements so is there anything that you'd want to add Melissa to that about advice for emerging brands when picking and contacting a contract manufacturer about this no I think we covered everything I think we really from from the get-go and understanding their scope and capabilities and where they want to go what they want to build and increased a business class and what they don't that understanding that is helpful as well because your product line may change and expand as well so but otherwise it can be covered in yes well that's good I think just to summarize I think that whenever you're approaching a contract manufacturer I've seen people who are newbies take it from different angles and some people have been very standoffish and and feeling like well you want my business don't you and when you're an emerging brand it's actually not true they don't want your business unless you're going to be good business because partnering with a high maintenance emerging brand who is very demanding and asking all kinds of questions but really isn't going to give them a high volume order is a pain and takes them away from focusing on their on getting other clients so I think the last piece of advice I would give when picking a contract sure is to come with a future minded long-term partnership perspective and to use that kind of vocabulary to build trust and to build rapport to be you don't need to be grateful like groveling for their attention but to be professional and respectful of that contract manufacturer they don't need your business you want to be a great partner and demonstrate that upfront you're in your circle of their time ask smart questions show that you know what you're talking about and it will really help you to get them to want to reply to you and to support the building of your project so yeah we just say say that I hope all this stuff was helpful to anyone who is trying to pick the right co-packer and it's concerned about food safety we will post this video in a blog that will have a template email that kind of summarizes some of these buzz words that you should be sure to ask about in your email to get a good response and evaluate a contract manufacturer and we just Melissa are so grateful for your time and for your attention and we're gonna post links to your different companies in the base of this email as well so if they need to contact you because they have questions they can contact your company and and get some professional experience advice great thank you very much Emily alright well everyone I hope you have a great day and I hope that you get to sell a lot of products thanks for joining us