So I get emails like this every few weeks. Start-up food companies trying “start-up” the learning process behind about finding an excellent food co-packing manufacturer fit to land on my Vetting A Co-Packer Q&A series from our Nov ’18 Emerging Brands Conference.
Imagine their disappointment when they find out NewPoint is a food marketing firm, not a co-packer. We help you SELL A LOT of your product. Not make it.
But since the majority of the firms we work with either hires a co-packer or contract manufacturer to produce their for products or co-pack for other brands to fill their capacity, it made sense that we include a workshop in our conference.
We had over 70 food companies attend the conference, and each submitted two questions they wanted to ask a co-packer. So it’s pretty safe to say that we got a lot of great intel from our co-packer expert panel. So I would start here:
Finding a great co-packer can be daunting and complicated. Although by no means comprehensive, below are a few NewPoint-trusted resources to help you start the journey.
The Specialty Food Association has a listing of nearly 700 contract packaging companies (co-packers). Far too many people feel that a co-packer is a co-packer and that any co-packer can do everything. Co-Packers have a variety of specific functional areas in which they excel. The following list is not all-inclusive, nor is it meant to serve as an endorsement.
CPA members are comprised of the nation’s leading contract packagers, which perform all packaging functions; from the simplest to the most complex and from the glamorous to the hazardous. Our members offer these packaging services to a wide variety of consumer goods companies, and these services range from manual and semi-automatic to full-speed, high-performance packaging lines.
CPA’s objectives include:
Programs to establish strong ethical standards among contract packagers and their clients
Increase knowledge and expertise within the contract packaging industry
Improve the business reputation of firms and the professional image of individuals within the industry
Encourage the effective use of contract packaging services.
Did you ever wonder why it was so tricky finding most co-packers? There are several good reasons.
Taken directly from the website:
First, many “co-packers” aren’t primarily co-packers. They are often small specialty food production businesses producing the first products the company is known for, and their “co-packing time” is the spare time they have between production runs of their products. And, not wanting the plant to be shut down unnecessarily, they produce other people’s products to fill this spare time.
Also, there are several different terms for “co-packers,” but they all do the same things. Besides Co-Packers, other terms to search for are Contract Packaging, Private Label, Product Development, Incubators & Shared Use Kitchens. And to make it even more challenging to find them, very few ever advertise their services, beyond their website, which you’re not likely to ever see.
Another reason for the difficulty in finding the right co-packer for your needs is that traditional thinking has one looking only in their general area. In reality, the unit cost of having your products produced a few states away can be much more cost-effective than using a nearby co-packer that doesn’t fill your needs.
Finally, you will notice that our directory has co-packers from all 50 states listed by category. This is because sometimes it could be worth adding a reasonable shipping cost, to get the best value for what you want to be accomplished. Shipping costs per unit can be a lot less than you think, as little as 5 to 10 cents per unit.
To identify and isolate areas for improvement in shopper marketing program strategies and tactics to further your CPG brand growth against set KPIs:
Maximize the economic performance of your CPG brand shopper marketing investment
Increase velocity at retail and consumer brand affinity
This shopper marketing audit will detail and contrast your CPG brand shopper marketing and messaging versus that of industry standard competitive practices and will include, but not limited to:
Target market reach, integrated retail marketing support, promotional continuity & awareness, offers and incentives, and tactical execution timing
Go-to-market launch strategies, timing, and tactical execution
Deliverables
Marketing Communication Audit Report
The deliverable will be a white paper with NewPoint Marketing findings and recommendations related to marketing activities in one retail partnership or DMA/market as defined by the client.
Brant brings 20+ years of experience to NewPoint as chief brand communicator and marketing-plan contributor.
Brant’s specialty is bringing an outside, investigative perspective that can feel alternately “rigorous” or “exasperating” depending on your point of view. Yet, he never fails to uncover a business’s unique selling proposition—one which can serve as a brand foundation for marketing that is compelling, creative and “sticky.”
Throughout his career, Brant’s applied his skill set to a broad range of business applications along the food supply-and-service chain. His services have provided vital clarity for all types of operations, from the more conventional food and food equipment manufacturers to the adjacent enterprises that partner with them, such as the Purdue University College of Agriculture.
Stephanie Bossung
Food industry marketing expertise—from retail to food-service and food-service equipment— is a natural outcome of having deep knowledge in every facet of a business’ operation. With 10 years in branding and business development, preceded by 15 years in mass media and promotions, Stephanie is an FMI Emerge mentor, holds an executive-level expertise in sales, marketing, media, and production management.
This exceptionally diverse skill set adds value for NewPoint clients by providing a full complement of perspectives on food-industry brand management endeavors.
Wired for a hawkish attention to detail while also maintaining a high-resolution view of the big picture, Stephanie is uniquely able to provide astute branding direction and simultaneously apply the business principles necessary to squeeze more bang out of every marketing buck.
Patrick Nycz
A member of the Forbes Agency Council and quoted in the New York Times, USA Today and Adweek, Patrick Nycz is the author of Moving Your Brand Up the Food Chain: Marketing Strategies to Grow Local and Regional Food Brands. He is an FMI Emerge mentor, an American Advertising Federation’s Silver Medal Award winner, and the Founding President of NewPoint Marketing, a full-service food industry marketing firm focused on food industry brands On a mission to grow.
Patrick’s vision for NewPoint emerged from his team’s success using this proven model for food industry clients and is fueled by NewPoint-funded food buyers and food manufacturers research around tracking consumer, industry, and ongoing food trends.
Kristy Blair
Since starting her 20-year career in commercial graphic design at one of the foremost catalog retailers in the world, Kristy’s visual branding skills have organically narrowed into the food-industry niche.
In that time, she’s directed graphic identities for snack food and restaurant startups, print materials for multiple agricultural seed companies, display graphics and merchandiser signage for major food-equipment manufacturers and everything in between.
Today, as one of the key brand architects for NewPoint clients, she continues to lead our visual research & development team, always working to find the innovative median between the best practices worth honoring and the accepted rules worth breaking.