A snack food co-packer fries, bakes or pops your chips, popcorn, pretzels or puffs, seasons them, and fills them into bags, often flushed with nitrogen to keep them crisp. Snacks are low-risk to make, so the rules are the basics: a registered facility, an honest label with the allergens in the seasoning declared, and your name on it. What makes or breaks a snack co-packer is texture and shelf life: a kettle chip made in a continuous fryer isn't a kettle chip, and a bag that goes stale before it sells is money in the trash. In the example below, a kettle chip maker selling 3,000 bags a month pays $3.10 a bag frying itself, $2.43 with a small kettle chip co-packer, and $1.80 with a larger snack plant whose minimum is four months of sales, longer than its chips stay fresh. Below is frying and packing, labels, what the co-packer needs, three quotes, and a free calculator.
The short version
- Match the method: batch kettle frying, continuous frying, baking or popping each make a different snack.
- Nitrogen-flushed bags keep chips crisp longer; agree on the shelf life and test it.
- Seasonings bring allergens, milk in sour cream and onion, wheat in some blends; declare them.
- Your label names you with "Manufactured for" or "Distributed by"; the co-packer is a registered facility.
- Breakage and burnt chips are part of the loss; agree on how much is normal.
- A run longer than your shelf life is a run you'll throw some of away.
- TaroStack keeps track of your bags at the co-packer, by lot and date, as a site of its own. More below.
Frying and packing
Kettle chips are fried in batches, the oil temperature dropping as the potatoes go in and climbing back, which gives the hard crunch; continuous fryers keep the oil steady and make a lighter chip. A co-packer with batch kettles is the one that can match a kettle chip; one with continuous lines is cheaper per bag and makes a different product. Bags flushed with nitrogen push out the oxygen that makes oil go stale, and the bag film itself matters. Agree on the best-by date, and test the co-packer's chips over that time, not your own. How shelf life is tested is in shelf life testing methods.
Labels and allergens
Seasonings are where snack allergens hide: milk in sour cream and onion or cheese, wheat or soy in some barbecue blends. Ask the co-packer what other seasonings run on the same line and tumbler, and keep your own list by product; one is in allergen matrix template. Your label names you, not the co-packer, qualified with words such as "Manufactured for" or "Distributed by" (21 CFR 101.5), and the co-packer is a registered food facility (21 CFR 1.225). This is general information, not legal advice.
What a snack co-packer will ask you for
- The recipe: potato or grain variety, slice thickness, oil, fry time and temperature, seasoning by weight.
- Specs: color, crunch, oil content, salt, broken chips allowed, fill weight.
- Packaging: bag film, size, nitrogen flush, labels or printed film, cases.
- The shelf life you need, and who pays for testing.
- A forecast and a deposit, and a seasonal plan if potatoes change through the year.
What a spec sheet holds is in product specification sheet.
Three quotes compared
Spearfish Kettle Chip Co., a made-up kettle chip maker in Spearfish, South Dakota, I use in these examples, sells about 3,000 five-ounce bags a month, most of them to grocers:
| Fry it yourself | Small kettle chip co-packer | Larger snack plant | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Run you'd order | 500 | 3,000 | 12,000 |
| Minimum run | none | 2,000 | 12,000 |
| Good bags, after the loss | 480 | 2,940 | 11,880 |
| Setup, or kitchen rent | $150 | $400 | $800 |
| Fee, or your own labor and gas, a bag | $1.30 | $0.85 | $0.45 |
| Potatoes, oil and salt, a bag | $0.98 | $0.92 | $0.85 |
| Nitrogen-flushed bag and label | $0.40 | $0.38 | $0.30 |
| Freight a run | $0 | $300 | $800 |
| Run cost | $1,490 | $7,150 | $20,800 |
| Months to sell the run | 0.2 | 1.0 | 4.0 |
| Storage while it sells | $0 | $0 | $592 |
| Cost a good bag | $3.10 | $2.43 | $1.80 |
Frying itself in a kettle, Spearfish makes 500 bags a day, six days a month. The small kettle co-packer saves 67 cents a bag, which turns its grocery bags at $3.50 from barely worth it into a real margin. The larger plant saves another 63 cents, but it runs a continuous fryer, so the chip changes, and its 12,000-bag run is four months of sales for a chip that stays fresh for about two or three. That quote only works with a different product or much higher sales. What grocers ask of a supplier is in selling to grocery stores requirements, and how co-packer quotes compare in co-packer vs commercial kitchen.
Get the calculator
Download the snack co-packer quote calculator. One column for each quote and one for frying 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 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
Bags at the co-packer with dates two months out, hot chips still fried at fairs, cases going to grocers and delis that want the newest dates. A spreadsheet can't say how many bags of each flavor are at the co-packer, which lot dates out first, or which stores got a lot with the wrong seasoning label.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps track of your bags at the 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 bag film and labels 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.
Lots with dates. Each run is a batch with a lot and a 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. A recall report shows which stores got each lot. How lot tracking works is in what is lot tracking.
Waste by reason. Stale bags pulled from shelves are adjustments with a reason, so waste shows by reason and flavor, which says whether the run sizes are right.
| The job | Spreadsheet | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Bags at the co-packer | Ask them | Stock at their site |
| Which lot dates out first | A guess | Earliest dates first, with alerts |
| Stale bags pulled back | Thrown out | Waste by reason |
| Which stores got lot 0930 | Search the invoices | One recall report |
Sites, transfers, lots, expiry alerts and recalls 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.