Granola Co-Packer: Baking, Allergens, Shelf Life and Quotes

A granola co-packer mixes and bakes your recipe in big oven batches, cools it, and fills it into bags or bulk cases, the same work you do in a kitchen, at a scale where one bake is a day of yours. The questions that matter are the ones a granola maker knows already: nuts and seeds on shared equipment, since a co-packer running a peanut or wheat granola before yours carries over; a gluten-free claim, which needs ingredients and cleaning that keep gluten below 20 ppm; and the best-by date, because granola's oils go stale, so the run you can order is capped by how fast you sell as much as by cash. The co-packer registers with FDA as a food facility, and your label and recipe stay yours. In the example below, a Logan, Utah granola maker selling about 1,667 bags a month pays $3.30 a bag baking it itself, $3.38 with a small granola co-packer, and $2.76 with a larger bakery whose minimum is nearly six months of sales. Below is what granola co-packers do, the allergen and shelf-life questions, three quotes, and a free calculator.

The short version

• Granola co-packers mix, bake, cool and fill to your recipe, in bags or bulk.
• Ask what else runs on the line: peanuts, tree nuts, wheat, sesame carry over.
• A gluten-free claim needs gluten below 20 ppm, with ingredients and cleaning to match.
• Granola goes stale, so the best-by date caps the run you can order.
• Ask who buys the oats, nuts and honey, and at whose price.
• Agree the bake color, moisture and cluster size on a spec, not by eye.
• TaroStack keeps track of your granola and bags at the co-packer, by lot, as a site of its own. More below.

What granola co-packers do

They mix in large paddle mixers, spread on sheet pans or a belt, bake, cool, break into clusters, and fill bags by weight on a scale or a filler, then case and label. Many buy oats and common nuts at their own volume price; honey from your beekeeper or a specialty fruit you may have to send. A co-packer that makes food registers with FDA as a food facility (21 CFR 1.226). What a co-packer is in general is in what is a co-packer, and how to find one in how to find a co-packer.

Allergens, gluten-free and shelf life

How to map allergens across recipes is in allergen matrix template, and shelf life in shelf life study template. This is general information, not legal advice.

Three quotes compared

Cache Valley Granola Co., the made-up granola maker in Logan, Utah, I use in these examples, sells about 1,667 twelve-ounce bags a month, to shops, at markets and online:

The small co-packer costs 8 cents a bag more than baking it in-house and gives back the bakes, about 1,667 bags of hands a month. The larger bakery saves 54 cents a bag, but its 10,000-bag minimum is almost six months of granola, longer than a best-by date that leaves shops enough time to sell it. So the run size, not the price, rules it out for now. How the granola's margins look by channel is in gross margin formula, and the recipe and bake in how to make granola in bulk.

What to settle before the first run

• The recipe by weight, and who buys each ingredient.
• Bake color, moisture and cluster size, with a sample kept as the standard.
• Fill weight and its tolerance.
• Allergen cleaning, and gluten testing if the bag says gluten-free.
• Lot code and best-by date format on every bag.

What a spec sheet holds is in product specification sheet.

Get the calculator

Download the granola co-packer quote calculator. One column for each quote and one for baking it yourself: type the run you'd order, the minimum, the loss, the setup, the fee or your labor, the granola, 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 bag 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

Oats and almonds bought by you, honey from a beekeeper, bags and labels in two places, and runs with best-by dates going to shops that want plenty of shelf life left. A spreadsheet can't say which almond lot is in a bag or how much granola is at the co-packer.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack keeps track of your granola and bags 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 ingredients and bags you send are a transfer, shown in transit until they arrive, and the finished cases there are counted as yours. More than one site is on Standard at $99 a month.

Runs as batches, with dates. Each run is a batch that records the oat, almond and honey lots it used, with its best-by date, so orders pick the earliest dates first and a shop can carry its own minimum days left.

Packaging on time. Bags and labels come up on the reorder list in days of cover, with each supplier's lead time and minimum.

Sites, transfers, recipes, batches and lots 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.

Questions people also ask

How much does a granola co-packer cost?

In the example, $3.38 a twelve-ounce bag at a small co-packer and $2.76 at a larger bakery, including the granola, the bag, the label and freight.

What is the minimum order for a granola co-packer?

In the example, 1,000 bags at a small co-packer and 10,000 at a larger bakery.

Can a co-packer make gluten-free granola?

Yes, if the ingredients and the line keep gluten below 20 ppm, with testing; ask how the line is cleaned after wheat.

What limits a granola run's size?

Shelf life as much as cash: granola goes stale, so a run should sell well before its best-by date.