13 November - How to Choose a Co-Manufacturer: 6 Questions Every Food Brand Must Ask Before Signing

November 13, 2025

⁠⁠Click here to download The Flavour Blueprint⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, a free guide based on the process I use with my clients to fix underperforming food and drink products.

Choosing a co-manufacturer for your food or drink product?

Wait before you sign anything, you need to ask these questions or you'll regret it later.

I've seen too many food and drink brands make expensive mistakes because they didn't know what to ask upfront.

In this episode, I'm sharing the six critical things you need to know before selecting a contract manufacturer.

First up: who actually owns the intellectual property of your recipe? I had a client who realized way too late that their recipe didn't belong to them anymore, sounds completely bonkers, right? But it happens more than you think.

I'll also walk you through the other essential questions: Can you use your own suppliers, or are you locked into theirs? What are the MOQs and do you have to pay upfront? How long are the lead times when they're busy with other clients? Can they stock your product in-house, or will you end up with pallets in your garage like one of my customers did? And finally, do they handle distribution to retailers, or is that on you too?

If you're a food or drink brand looking to scale up and work with a co-manufacturer, these questions will save you from nasty surprises and costly mistakes down the line.

Don't jump into manufacturing just because you want to get into retail, think it through first.

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If you want to design food or drink products that taste perfect for your consumers, hit those repeat purchases, and see your sales go through the roof — there’s no luck or miracle involved. You need a flavour strategy.

👋 Hi, I am Manon Galizzi, a food scientist and flavour expert with over 10 years in the food industry.

In each episode, I share what I’ve learned from helping food and drink brands create new products from scratch, choose the right flavour direction, or fix products that just aren’t performing.

Because flavour isn’t just a nice-to-have — it’s the number one reason people buy.

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Episode Transcript

[00:00.1]
If you're a food and drink brand and your product isn't performing the way it should, maybe the sales have slowed down or the review keep mentioning that the taste is not that great. I have created something to help you. It's called the Flavour Blueprint. It's a free guide that based on the process I use with my clients to fix their underperforming products.

[00:18.4]
If you're tired of guessing and you want clarity before another batch, download your free flavour blueprint. If you want to create food or drink products that actually taste amazing, get the repeat purchases and see your sales go up.

[00:33.8]
You need the flavour strategy. I'm Manon Galizzi, food scientist and flavour expert and in this podcast I share what I've learned from helping food and drink brands create new products from scratch. Choose the right flavour direction or fix the flavours that are not working. Bonjour and welcome to another of my 30 day podcast today challenge episode.

[00:55.4]
How to work with the co manufacturer. Which one to select? What do you need to know before selecting a co manufacturer? This is what we are going to see in this episode. The first thing you have to bear in mind is most of the contract manufacturer will keep the IP which is intellectual property of your recipe and your product.

[01:19.9]
It means if you want to change co manufacturer in the future, that co manufacturer will have to match the recipe, probably slightly tweak it to be able to create your product.

[01:35.2]
Again, the intellectual property belong to most of the contract manufacturer. So before jumping into contract manufacturer because you want absolutely to go to retailer, think before it's too late.

[01:50.7]
And I had one of my customer who that happened and they realized way too late that the intellectual property of their product didn't belong to them. Which for me sounds completely bonkers.

[02:06.2]
And some of my clients, that's the first question they ask me can I keep the IP of my product? And now I say of course I'm here to help you develop or choose the right flavours or fix a product that is not working.

[02:21.4]
But I don't want the recipe to belong to me. That sounds completely unfair, but that's just my own opinion. So when you choose a contract manufacturer that should be the first question you ask and potentially you can review or you can negotiate is the intellectual property of your product.

[02:44.8]
The second thing to ask is which supplier do they use? And do they use only their own suppliers. So for any food and drink business is always a long painful process to validate suppliers and having them in their system.

[03:06.3]
It takes a lot of back and forth, a lot of validation. So it's a long and painful process. So for that some contract manufacturers will only use the their own suppliers. So if you are a small food and drink business that have created your recipe from scratch in your kitchen, for example, you may already have looked at specific suppliers.

[03:29.5]
Maybe you want local suppliers with a certain ethnicity, sustainability. Maybe you have done all of this research on the suppliers you want to work with. But bear in mind that some of the contract manufacturing manufacturer will not accept to work with your suppliers.

[03:50.6]
The third thing is the MOQs. Most of the contract manufacturers will have very high MOQs and they will ask you to pay upfront. You will also have to pay for trials before it goes to full production.

[04:06.6]
Another important thing is the lead time. They are very busy, they have a lot of demand and sometimes it can be a very long lead time before they finally can produce your product. Another aspect is can they stock your product in house?

[04:24.3]
Or do you have to stock them somewhere in your house or in your garage? And that happened to one of my customer where they had to stock, I can't remember how many samples in their garage because the contract manufacturer didn't stock or I think it has to be a certain fee to be able to stock your product.

[04:53.9]
And then the last important question to ask your contract manufacturer is do they support distribution of your product? So if for example, they don't stock the product but they arrange straightaway distribution to the retailers, then that's fine.

[05:11.9]
But if you have to stock them somewhere in your garage or in your house and you have to do the distribution yourself, that is adding up, some complexity around the supply chain and some cost of course. Okay, this is the end of this.

[05:27.3]
Again, short and snappy episode. Just few questions, few things to keep in mind when you're contacting co manufacturers so you don't have bad surprises down the line. Ok. And don't forget you can find all of my tips around tasting flavours and product development in my newsletter.

[05:47.5]
So don't forget to subscribe and I will see you tomorrow for another episode. Bye.

13 November - How to Choose a Co-Manufacturer: 6 Questions Every Food Brand Must Ask Before Signing

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