Brands at this stage are selling at farmers markets, or restaurants making their products and looking into retail. If you’re in this stage, you’re likely: • Manufacturing in a local commercial kitchen • Testing out branding • Gathering feedback from customers • Connecting with retail locations • Opening up an online storefront
1-30
Local co-ops
Commercial Kitchen
Congratulations!
You’ve launched your first CPG product!
This is an amazing first step at getting your product into the market. Depending on how long ago you launched your product and how your sales are going, you may be trying to figure out how to begin scaling. Outsourcing production to a contract manufacturer is a common next step for brands as they enter Phase 2, so let’s help get you there.
Product Development overview
Here is the Product Development outline we shared with brands in Phase 0. You should be familiar with all of these steps already, and either have completed them all or be actively working on them, but we recommend giving it a once-over even if you’re familiar with the process.
Product Development OverviewIf you’ve done your R&D and have been selling your product out of your home kitchen for a while, you may be looking into contract manufacturing. Brands often jump into co-man conversations too early and don’t get the responses from co-mans that they were hoping for. In order to avoid that, we want to make sure you’re fully prepared.
What’s the next step?
Like the age old question, the chicken or the egg, it’s often hard to figure out which step comes first - finding a co-man or getting orders. Here’s a guide to help tackle that problem.
The next question brands have is around minimum order volumes, or the minimum amount a co-man will manufacture. This is a huge determining factor on if a brand is ready for a co-man. This article will give you an overview of the minimum order sizes co-mans tend to have so you can determine when you’ll be ready to meet those.
Production Volumes and MOQsAs you start to scale up, you’ll need to be familiar with some key industry terms, so here is our glossary of terms.
As you start to figure out pricing, use your MSRP guide. These prices may change when you move into a co-man, but it’s important to start figuring out pricing now, so you can see if your customers are willing to pay what you’re pricing your item at.
And of course our handy dandy Co-man industry secrets page, because here at Partner Slate, we value creating more transparency in the CPG industry.
Co-man industry secretsAs you start to ready yourself for a co-man, here are some other resources you might find helpful:
Commercial IngredientsProcess Authority LetterOnce you feel as though you’re ready or about to move into Phase 2, head to that page for co-man resources!