Bringing a food product to retail can be an exciting time! Between trying different recipes, designing the perfect label, and other food packaging aspects, there’s many points to consider. 

One of the most important thing to decide is for your food business is how the product gets made, and who makes it.  Two common solutions are partnering with a food co-packing (contract packaging) company, or sell with a private label. 

These may seem the same at a glance, but there are some key differences in determining whether you should work with a co-packer or use private labeling. 

What is Co-Packing?

Businesses that partner with a food manufacturing companies want to scale their business and production, but usually don’t have resources like the staffing, time, or space to facilitate the growth of the business. The first step to working with co-packing company is to provide them with recipe details like ingredient quantities, times, and temperatures.

Once this information is given, the co-packer can begin to develop test batches to ensure quality. This leads up to the full production run!

In this partnership, you will retain all your rights to and the ownership of your recipe and formulas.

Who uses co-packing?

• Restaurants with a special sauce
• Individual chefs with a popular recipe
• Food and beverage businesses wanting to create a new product

How Does a Private Label Work?

Private labeling is when the product belongs to the manufacturer, and the label belongs to you, the client. They create a product with their recipe and formula, but package and label it under your private brand.

Sometimes, a production team can create a private label recipe exclusively for you, or they can adjust your current recipe to suit your needs depending on your agreement. In both cases, the production team owns the recipes, the sauces and buys the ingredients.

Private Labeling Customers

• Small food businesses wanting to put their name on products
• Large retailers (Walmart’s “Great Value”, Amazon’s “Amazon Essentials”)
• Customers wanting to give gifts with custom branding

Working with a Co-Packing Company

Palace Foods, Inc. is a co-packing and food manufacturing company based in Reading, PA.  We specialize small volume and high volume specialty food co-packing using advanced hot fill and cold fill methods. 

Quality is valued with every recipe we produce, which is why we use all-natural and high-quality ingredients. Still have more questions about partnering with a co-packing company? Fill out the form below to contact our team today!