Capturing Culinary Quality in the Plant

If sourcing prepared ingredients is one possible route to product success, it’s a good idea to perform a cost-benefit analysis. “If you buy product that is already roasted, it drives up your ingredient cost, but will save on your processing cost,” says Baggs. “You have to look at your return on investment and ask if it is worth it to buy it or do it yourself.”

THE OMNIPRESENT BOTTOM LINE

The solution to manufacturing challenges might seem eminently logical: Simply acquire the proper equipment to do the job. But it’s rarely that cut and dry. In addition to the obvious expense of new technology, problems with space in the plant or slower throughput caused by an additional process might arise.

The notion of modifying equipment in a co-packing plant “comes up quite often,” says David Schy, chef and consultant, Schy-Town, Inc., Northbrook, IL. “But it’s often shot down by economics.”

Going outside the box with equipment in a co-packing plant can be very expensive, notes Kathy Casey, owner, Kathy Casey Food Studios, Seattle: “If you have to make new packaging molds, that can run $30,000 to $60,000. And special shapes of pasta dies can be in the thousands and thousands of dollars.”

Such dollar figures can prove imposing. “Factories are few and far between that will shell out $80,000 for new equipment in the hope that the product will catch on,” says Schy. “What a good culinologist will do is figure out how to use existing equipment to get the results.” Often, that means reformulating the item to work with a co-packer’s stock ingredients and equipment.