A candy co-packer cooks, forms, cuts, coats and wraps toffee, caramels, brittles, hard candy or gummies for a brand. For a small candy maker, the reason to look for one is often the calendar: a toffee business can sell more than half its year in November and December, and a kitchen that's quiet in March can't make three months of sales in six weeks. A co-packer's kettles and enrobers can, if it's booked early. The label is where candy needs care: artificial colors named where the rules require it, and the allergens, butter's milk and the almonds, declared. In the example below, a toffee maker selling 3,000 boxes a month in its holiday months pays $6.98 a box making it itself, $5.14 with a small candy co-packer, and $4.05 with a larger plant whose minimum would be most of a year's sales. Below is holiday capacity, labels, what the co-packer needs, three quotes, and a free calculator.
The short version
- Book holiday runs months ahead; candy co-packers fill up by late summer.
- Toffee, caramels, gummies and hard candy each need different equipment; match the co-packer.
- Artificial colors are named on the label where the rules require it.
- Butter, cream, nuts, gelatin and wheat bring allergens and dietary questions; declare them.
- Your label names you with "Manufactured for" or "Distributed by".
- Candy keeps for months, so a bigger run is a cash question, unless it's seasonal and won't sell in spring.
- TaroStack keeps track of your boxes at the co-packer, by lot, as a site of its own. More below.
Holiday capacity
Bluebonnet Toffee Co., a made-up English toffee maker in Dallas, Texas, I use in these examples, sells 54% of its year in November and December. In its own kitchen it can make about 300 boxes a day, which is enough in spring and nowhere near enough in December. A co-packer solves the peak if it's booked: candy co-packers are busiest in the same weeks as everyone else, so the order goes in by the end of summer, with packaging ready. Splitting the work, the co-packer makes the holiday volume and the kitchen keeps the rest of the year, is common. How to plan stock for a season is in seasonal inventory.
Labels, colors and allergens
Artificial colors have to be identified on the label where the color additive regulations require it (21 CFR 101.22), so a candy with Red 40 names it. Toffee carries milk from the butter, and nuts if it's topped with almonds; gummies may carry gelatin, which matters to vegetarian and kosher or halal buyers; some candies use wheat. Ask what else runs on the line. Your label names you, qualified with words such as "Manufactured for" or "Distributed by" (21 CFR 101.5). This is general information, not legal advice. How toffee is costed and planned is in toffee business plan.
What a candy co-packer will ask you for
- The recipe by weight, cook temperatures, and the texture to match.
- Specs: piece size and weight, coating, how much breakage is acceptable.
- Packaging: boxes, bags, tins, liners, labels, and who assembles gift tins.
- Allergen and dietary needs: nut-free, gelatin-free, colors you will and won't use.
- A forecast and a deposit, with dates, for the holiday months especially.
What a spec sheet holds is in product specification sheet.
Three quotes compared
In its holiday months, Bluebonnet sells about 3,000 eight-ounce boxes a month:
| Make it yourself | Small candy co-packer | Larger confectionery plant | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Run you'd order | 300 | 3,000 | 10,000 |
| Minimum run | none | 1,000 | 10,000 |
| Good boxes, after breakage | 288 | 2,940 | 9,900 |
| Setup, or kitchen rent | $150 | $400 | $900 |
| Fee, or your own labor, a box | $2.80 | $1.60 | $0.90 |
| Butter, sugar, almonds, chocolate, a box | $2.15 | $2.05 | $1.90 |
| Box, liner and label | $1.25 | $1.15 | $1.00 |
| Freight a run | $0 | $300 | $700 |
| Run cost | $2,010 | $15,100 | $39,600 |
| Months to sell the run | 0.1 | 1.0 | 3.3 |
| Storage while it sells | $0 | $0 | $460 |
| Cost a good box | $6.98 | $5.14 | $4.05 |
Toffee by hand is slow: cooking, spreading, coating, breaking and boxing put $2.80 of labor in each box, and 300 boxes a day means ten days a month in December, more than one kitchen can do. The small co-packer saves $1.84 a box, about $5,500 in a holiday month, and makes the volume. The larger plant saves another $1.09, but its 10,000-box run is more than three months of holiday sales; with half the year's sales in two months, most of it would sit until next November. How co-packer quotes compare more generally is in co-packer vs commercial kitchen.
Get the calculator
Download the candy co-packer quote calculator. One column for each quote and one for making it yourself: type the run you'd order, the minimum, the loss, the setup, the fee or your labor, ingredients, packaging, freight and storage, and the run's cost, the months it takes to sell at your sales a month, the storage while it sells, the cost of each good unit and the cash out before it sells fill in. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
Holiday toffee at the co-packer, spring toffee from your kitchen, gift tins assembled at home from both, corporate orders of 200 tins with a delivery date, and shops that reorder weekly in December. A spreadsheet can't say how many boxes are at the co-packer, whether there's enough for the corporate tins, or which lot a shop's boxes came from.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps track of your boxes at the co-packer, by lot, as a site of its own.
The co-packer as a site. The co-packer's premises can be a site, so the boxes and tins you send are a transfer, shown in transit until they arrive, and the finished boxes there are counted as yours. More than one site is on Standard at $99 a month.
Tins as recipes. A gift tin is a recipe of toffee boxes, a tin and a ribbon, so assembling 200 takes them off stock, and "what could I make right now" says how many tins the toffee on hand allows. Each sales order shows, as it's taken, whether there's enough.
Lots and recalls. Each run gets a lot that records the almond and butter lots it used, and a recall report shows which customers got it. How lot tracking works is in what is lot tracking.
| The job | Spreadsheet | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Toffee at the co-packer | Ask them | Stock at their site |
| Enough for 200 corporate tins? | Count the boxes | What could I make right now |
| A December order | Checked by hand | Shown as you take it |
| Which shops got lot 1201 | Search the invoices | One recall report |
Sites, transfers, recipes, lots and sales orders are on Standard at $99 a month for more than one site. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.