When Using Novel Ingredients, Are All Co-Packers Created Equal?

When developing your new food or beverage brand, you will eventually need to create a scalable recipe in order to mass produce your product. If you’re working with a novel ingredient, that process may prove a bit harder than you initially expected and present unexpected challenges.

Janie Hoffman, CEO & Founder of Mamma Chia, the first organic, chia-based food and beverage company, recently sat down with FBU to discuss the trials and tribulations of using a non-traditional ingredient like chia. In collaboration with Grace Venus, a product developer who works with entrepreneurs to develop commercial-scale recipes, Hoffman created a beverage in which the chia seeds floated throughout the liquid. Mass producing the recipe, however, was another story.

As Hoffman learned, not all co-packers are the same. While the process of taking a recipe and scaling it may seem like a simple one, glitches and setbacks, particularly when using novel ingredients, are common. In Hoffman’s case, one trial run after another ended in failure.

Yet, she was determined to make it work, and in the following video, Hoffman discusses how she was able to identify and partner with co-packers that could create a product to that was up to her standards.

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