A cold brew co-packer brews, fills and seals your coffee, and the first question it will ask is whether you sell it refrigerated or shelf-stable. Black coffee is a low-acid food, with a pH above 4.6, so cold brew that sits on an unrefrigerated shelf in a sealed can or bottle has to be made commercially sterile in a plant set up and registered for low-acid canned foods. Cold brew sold cold, in bottles or kegs, is made by a different, simpler kind of co-packer and has to stay cold all the way to the customer. In the example below, a cold brew maker on Oʻahu selling 3,000 bottles a month pays $1.55 a bottle brewing it itself, $1.62 with a local refrigerated co-packer, and $1.39 for shelf-stable cans from a mainland co-packer whose minimum is ten months of sales. Below is the refrigerated-or-shelf-stable choice, the rules, what a co-packer needs, three quotes, and a free calculator.
The short version
- Coffee is a low-acid food: pH above 4.6 and water activity above 0.85.
- Shelf-stable cold brew in sealed containers needs a thermal process to commercial sterility, in a registered plant.
- Refrigerated cold brew is simpler to make and harder to sell far away: it has to stay cold, with a short shelf life.
- High-pressure processing is often used to stretch refrigerated shelf life; it doesn't make it shelf-stable.
- Ask each co-packer which it does, and see its registration, before asking for a price.
- Compare quotes on the cost of a good unit, the freight, and how long the minimum takes to sell.
- TaroStack keeps track of what's at your co-packer, by lot and date, as a site of its own. More below.
Refrigerated or shelf-stable
FDA defines low-acid foods as foods, other than alcoholic beverages, with a finished equilibrium pH above 4.6 and a water activity above 0.85, and commercial sterility as the condition, reached by heat, where the food is free of microorganisms that could reproduce in it under normal nonrefrigerated storage, and of viable microorganisms of public health significance (21 CFR 113.3). A plant making thermally processed low-acid foods in hermetically sealed containers registers with FDA and files its process for each product (21 CFR 108.35). That's a retort or aseptic co-packer, and there are fewer of them, with bigger minimums.
Refrigerated cold brew isn't made shelf-stable that way: it depends on being kept cold, from the co-packer's cooler to the store's, with a "keep refrigerated" label and a shelf life tested for that product. The business side of that choice is in how to start a cold brew coffee business. This is general information, not legal advice.
What a cold brew co-packer will ask you for
- Your recipe: coffee, grind, ratio, water, steep time and temperature, and a target strength.
- Your coffee, or approval for them to buy it; many brands send their own roasted beans.
- The process: for shelf-stable cans, the co-packer's filed process for your product; for refrigerated, the treatment (if any) and the shelf life you've tested.
- Packaging, labels and a forecast; cans and labels often have their own minimums.
What a spec sheet holds is in product specification sheet.
Three quotes compared
Kaimana Cold Brew, a made-up ready-to-drink cold brew maker on Oʻahu I use in these examples, sells about 3,000 twelve-ounce units a month and buys roasted coffee at $12 a kilo:
| Brew it yourself, refrigerated | Local co-packer, refrigerated | Mainland co-packer, shelf-stable cans | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Run you'd order | 1,200 | 3,000 | 30,000 |
| Minimum run | none | 2,000 | 30,000 |
| Good units, after the loss | 1,164 | 2,940 | 29,700 |
| Setup, or your own kitchen time | $150 | $300 | $1,500 |
| Fee, or your own labor, a unit | $0.40 | $0.55 | $0.40 |
| Coffee a unit | $0.36 | $0.36 | $0.34 |
| Bottle or can, cap, label | $0.62 | $0.48 | $0.30 |
| Freight a run | $0 | $150 | $5,000 |
| Run cost | $1,806 | $4,620 | $37,700 |
| Months to sell the run | 0.4 | 1.0 | 9.9 |
| Storage while it sells | $0 | $147 | $3,560 |
| Cost a good unit | $1.55 | $1.62 | $1.39 |
Brewing itself, Kaimana pays 40 cents of labor a bottle, about 30 grams of coffee at $12 a kilo, 36 cents, and 62 cents for glass, cap and label. The local co-packer adds high-pressure processing for a longer refrigerated life, in plastic bottles, for 7 cents a bottle more than brewing it in-house. The mainland canning co-packer is 16 cents cheaper a unit than brewing it yourself, even after $5,000 of ocean freight, and it opens shelves that have no cooler, but its 30,000-can minimum is ten months of Kaimana's sales and $37,700 out before it sells. How a brand weighs those trade-offs is in co-packer vs commercial kitchen.
The first run
For refrigerated runs, agree on the cold chain: who holds the finished bottles, at what temperature, and how they travel. For shelf-stable cans, ask for the filed process and the run's process records, and agree a best-by date the co-packer will stand behind. For both, agree a lot code on every unit and a sample retained from each run. What to settle with any co-packer is in what is a co-packer.
Get the calculator
Download the cold brew co-packer quote calculator. One column for each quote and one for brewing it yourself: type the run you'd order, the minimum, the loss, the setup, the fee or your labor, coffee, 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
Refrigerated cold brew has days, not months, and a run split between your cooler, the co-packer's and three cafés' fridges. Shelf-stable cans have months, and a container crossing the Pacific. Either way, a spreadsheet can't say which lot is closest to its date, or which cafés got the run you're asked about.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps track of what's at your co-packer, by lot and date, as a site of its own.
The co-packer as a site. The co-packer's premises can be a site, so the beans you send are a transfer, shown in transit until they arrive, and the finished cases there are yours, counted at their place. More than one site is on Standard at $99 a month.
Lots with dates. Each run is a batch with a lot and a use-by or best-by date, so orders pick the earliest dates first, an alert warns before a lot nears its date, and a forecast shows what will expire unsold. How dating and shelf life fit together is in shelf life testing methods.
Customers and their shelf-life rules. A customer can carry its own days-of-shelf-life rule, such as a café that wants at least 20 days left on every bottle, so a picking list doesn't send it bottles that are too close. A recall report shows which customers got each lot.
| The job | Spreadsheet | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Bottles at the co-packer | Ask them | Stock at their site |
| Which lot dates out first | A guess | Earliest dates first, with alerts |
| A café's minimum days left | Remembered | The customer's own rule |
| Which cafés got lot 1018 | Search the invoices | One recall report |
Sites, transfers, lots and expiry alerts 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.