Pickle Co-Packer: Acidified Food Rules, Filings and Quotes

A pickle co-packer packs your pickles to your recipe in a plant set up for acidified foods, the category most vinegar pickles fall into: low-acid cucumbers, peppers or beans brought to a safe acidity. That means the co-packer has done the paperwork you'd otherwise do yourself: an FCE registration with FDA, a supervisor trained at a school the Commissioner approves, and the habit of testing and recording the finished pH of every batch. Your part is the recipe and its scheduled process, set by a process authority, and a process filing for each product in each jar size, which the plant files for what it packs. Ask who owns the filing if you move plants later. In the example below, a North Carolina pickle maker selling about 1,000 jars a month pays $3.14 a jar packing it itself, $3.20 with a small acidified food co-packer, and $2.49 with a larger pickle packer whose minimum is six months of jars. Below is what pickle co-packers do, the paperwork, three quotes, and a free calculator.

The short version

• Most vinegar pickles are acidified foods, with FDA's acidified food rules.
• A pickle co-packer has an FCE registration and a trained supervisor.
• Your recipe needs a scheduled process from a process authority.
• A process filing goes in for each product in each jar size.
• Every batch's finished pH is tested and recorded; every jar is coded.
• Ask who owns the process filing if you change plants.
• TaroStack keeps track of your jars at the co-packer, by lot, as a site of its own. More below.

What pickle co-packers do

They brine or blanch the vegetables, pack jars, fill with hot brine or cold-fill and pasteurize, cap, cool, code and label. Most buy the vegetables, vinegar and spices; a specialty cucumber or pepper you may grow or source yourself. The plant registers as a food canning establishment and files the scheduled process for each product and jar size it packs (21 CFR 108.25), with processing supervised by someone who completed an approved school (114.10). What a co-packer is in general is in what is a co-packer.

The paperwork

The registration side is in FCE registration, the process authority in process authority letter, and pH in pH testing for acidified foods. This is general information, not legal advice.

Three quotes compared

Haw River Kitchen, the made-up home processor in Graham, North Carolina, I use in these examples, sells about 1,000 sixteen-ounce jars of bread-and-butter pickles a month to country stores and two grocers:

The small co-packer costs 6 cents a jar more and takes the packing, the pH records and the registration off the kitchen table. The larger packer saves 65 cents a jar, about $650 a month, for $14,200 out and six months of pickles; pickles keep on the shelf, so it's a cash question. Whose name is on the process filing decides how easily the recipe can move to the larger packer later. Pricing a jar is in pickle business profit margin.

What to settle before the first run

• The process authority's scheduled process for each pickle and jar size.
• Who files and holds the process filings.
• The finished pH target and how each batch is tested.
• Fill weight, headspace and declared net weight.
• Lot code format and the best-by date.

What a spec sheet holds is in product specification sheet.

Get the calculator

Download the pickle co-packer quote calculator. One column for each quote and one for packing it yourself: type the run you'd order, the minimum, the loss, the setup, the fee or your labor, the vegetables and brine, the jar and label, 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 jar 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

Jars at the co-packer, lot codes on every case, and a grocer's question about one jar that has to lead to the batch and its pH record: a spreadsheet doesn't connect them.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack keeps track of your jars 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 labels you send are a transfer and the finished cases there are counted as yours. More than one site is on Standard at $99 a month.

Runs as batches. Each run is a batch with a lot, and fields of your own on the batch record can hold the pH reading the co-packer reports.

Where it went. Each grocer's order records the lots it got, so one recall report shows every customer a run reached.

Sites, transfers, 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 pickle co-packer cost?

In the example, $3.20 a sixteen-ounce jar at a small acidified food co-packer and $2.49 at a larger packer, including ingredients, the jar and freight.

Does a pickle co-packer need FDA registration?

Yes: a plant packing acidified foods registers as a food canning establishment and files a process for each product and jar size.

Do I need a process authority to use a co-packer?

Yes: the recipe needs a scheduled process from a process authority before it's filed and packed.

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

In the example, 1,000 jars at a small co-packer and 6,000 at a larger packer.