Bringing my acorn to life

VfM4meplse

I am considering bringing a snack product of my own creation to market. I realise that making something in my own kitchen is very different from small-scale manufacturing, and there's a lot to it that I'm not familiar with, particularly on the regulatory side of things.

There's a lot of information on the internet. Marketing aside, it would be really helpful if a fellow MSEr could recommend a reputable manufacturing unit, where technical expertise (eg on stability, formulation etc) is offered along with the use of the equipment.

Any ideas?

Little_Miss_Uni-Debt

Hello VfM4,

:T Great to hear you're thinking of creating your own product.

Have you ruled out creating them in your own kitchen to start off with? Most people start out that way, then move up to renting a commercial kitchen space when demand exceeds their home setup.

Then maybe after you've got sales under your belt look to transferring production to a manufacturer. It also looks better from a financial point of view. I'm not sure how many manufacturers take on products without proof of customer demand etc.

Or do you have your heart set on outsourcing it from the start? I guess it depends whether you have the capital to start off with.

I think you'd learn so much about the product and process by doing it yourself for a little while first. You can iron out all the issues before taking on a larger production process where mistakes are costly (i.e stopping production etc)

I'm pretty sure that to legally run the set up from your own kitchen you just register with the local council and the send out a Health/Food Inspector to verfiy the work environment and check you are keeping hygiene records etc.

Little_Miss_Uni-Debt

I think maybe you'd want to find something similar to this if your recipe can't be created without specialist equipment. It's a new product environment for snack products etc.

http://www.bakerperkinsgroup.com/product/239/138/bakery-innovation-centre.html

I'd guess that it may be the case you would use the innovation centre to develop the specifics of the product and once you have that info you would be free to find your own manufacturer.

I also presume it would be a costly process, but you don't know until you ask!

VfM4meplse

Thank you LMU-D! I'm fine with small-scale production in my kitchen during the testing stage, ie whilst I perfect my recipe, but would then want to expand fast, which is where the technical expertise would be valuable. In particular, although I have an appreciation of the theory (which I guess would be similar to pharmaceutics), I have little practical experience in additives, "aging products", bbe dates, nutritional and calorific values. I do know that I would want to market it based on it's health benefits for people that take their health seriously, and that I would want to also construct tests akin to phase-I safety studies to look at the impact on the individual. And yes I'm prepared to sink my own money into this project....dragons can keep their greedy paws off!

jhp

The Small Business Forum is here http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=27

You might find by posting there your get more input.;)