If you are building a food, beverage, beauty, or personal-care brand, you will eventually hit a question every founder faces: who is going to actually make and package this at volume? That is where co-packing comes in.
Co-packing, defined
A co-packer (short for “contract packager”) is a company that fills and packages your product for you. Depending on the project, that can mean filling liquids, powders, or particulates into bottles, jars, bags, sachets, or stick packs; applying labels; assembling retail displays; and boxing everything up ready for sale. A co-manufacturer (or “co-man”) goes a step further and also produces or blends the product itself. Many partners, including Minimus Products, do both.
Why brands use a co-packer
Outsourcing production lets you avoid the enormous cost of buying equipment, leasing production space, and hiring a packaging team before you have the sales to justify it. A good co-packer already has the equipment, the certifications, and the know-how, so you can focus on your brand, your formula, and your customers.
What to look for
The right partner depends on your stage. Large co-packers are built for huge, repeating runs and often require high minimums. Emerging brands usually need something different: low minimums, flexibility, and a partner willing to take on small and medium runs and grow with them. Ask about minimum order sizes, the formats they can fill, their certifications (FDA registration, organic, kosher, and so on), and how they handle componentry sourcing.
How Minimus Products approaches it
Minimus Products is an entrepreneurial contract packager focused on small and medium runs, with a low project minimum and the ability to add equipment and capacity as your volume grows. We are an FDA-registered facility, certified by the CA Department of Health for food and organic food packaging, with CCOF organic and OK kosher certifications. If you are figuring out your first production run, get in touch and we will walk you through how we would approach it.