A spice co-packer blends your rub or seasoning to your recipe and fills it into shakers, jars, pouches or bulk bags. It's one of the easier products to co-pack: dry, stable, quick to fill. The questions that matter are about the ingredients and the label: whether the raw spices have been treated to reduce bacteria, what a blender that also runs other people's sesame or wheat blends carries over into yours, and how the label names what's in it. In the example below, a barbecue rub maker selling 2,500 shaker jars a month pays $2.17 a jar blending and filling it itself, $2.19 with a spice co-packer, and $1.83 with a larger co-packer whose minimum is four months of sales. Below is what spice co-packers do, the label and allergen questions, three quotes, and a free calculator.
The short version
- Spice co-packers blend to your recipe and fill shakers, jars, pouches or bulk bags.
- Ask whether the raw spices are treated, steam or otherwise, to reduce bacteria, and for the certificates.
- Ask what else runs on the same blender: sesame, wheat, milk powder or soy carry over.
- On the label, spices can be declared as "spice"; garlic and onion powders by their own names.
- Allergens in the blend, sesame included, are declared on the label.
- Spices keep, so a bigger run is a question of cash, not freshness.
- TaroStack keeps track of your spices and jars at the co-packer, by lot, as a site of its own. More below.
What spice co-packers do
They weigh and blend in ribbon or paddle blenders in batches of 50 to 500 pounds, sift, fill by weight or volume, cap with a sifter, label and case. Many will buy common spices for you at their own volume price; specialty chiles or a single-origin pepper you may have to send. A co-packer that packs food registers with FDA as a food facility (21 CFR 1.225). Raw spices can carry bacteria, so ask whether the ones going into your blend have been treated to reduce them, and keep the supplier's certificates with each lot. What a co-packer is, in general, is in what is a co-packer.
The label and the allergens
FDA lets spice be declared in the ingredient list as "spice"; powders from fruits and vegetables, such as onion, garlic and celery powder, are declared by their common names because they're food, not flavor (21 CFR 101.22(h)). A blend with sesame seeds, wheat flour, milk powder or soy sauce powder declares those allergens. And a co-packer's blender that ran a sesame blend before yours is a cross-contact question: ask how the line is cleaned between blends, and whether allergen blends run last. This is general information, not legal advice. How to map the allergens in each blend is in allergen matrix template.
Three quotes compared
Sangamon Spice Co., a made-up barbecue rub and seasoning maker in Springfield, Illinois, I use in these examples, sells about 2,500 five-ounce shaker jars a month:
| Blend and fill yourself | Spice co-packer | Larger spice co-packer | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Run you'd order | 1,000 | 3,000 | 10,000 |
| Minimum run | none | 1,500 | 10,000 |
| Good jars, after the loss | 980 | 2,955 | 9,900 |
| Setup, or kitchen rent | $180 | $300 | $500 |
| Fee, or your own labor, a jar | $0.33 | $0.45 | $0.28 |
| The blend, a jar | $1.00 | $0.95 | $0.90 |
| Shaker, sifter cap and label | $0.62 | $0.58 | $0.50 |
| Freight a run | $0 | $220 | $450 |
| Run cost | $2,130 | $6,460 | $17,750 |
| Months to sell the run | 0.4 | 1.2 | 4.0 |
| Storage while it sells | $0 | $0 | $355 |
| Cost a good jar | $2.17 | $2.19 | $1.83 |
Blending itself in a rented kitchen, Sangamon fills 120 jars an hour with two people. The first co-packer costs about a cent more a jar and gives back about 20 hours a month, and buys the bulk spices a little cheaper. The larger co-packer saves 34 cents a jar, about $850 a month, for $17,750 out and four months of rub on its shelves. Rubs keep for many months, so the larger run is a cash question; the setup includes the blender's cleanout, which is why it rises with the size of the line. How a spice business's margins look by channel is in spice business profit margin.
What to settle before the first run
- The recipe by weight to a tenth of a percent, and who sources each spice.
- Mesh size and moisture, so the blend flows through the sifter without clumping.
- Fill weight and its tolerance; a shaker short of its declared weight is a label problem.
- Allergen cleaning between blends, and a certificate for each spice lot.
- Lot code and best-by date format on every jar.
What a spec sheet holds is in product specification sheet.
Get the calculator
Download the spice co-packer quote calculator. One column for each quote and one for blending it yourself: type the run you'd order, the minimum, the loss, the setup, the fee or your labor, the blend, 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 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
Twelve blends, forty spices, some bought by you and some by the co-packer, jars and labels in two places, and lots going to grocers and online orders. A spreadsheet can't say which paprika lot is in a jar, how many jars of the hot rub are at the co-packer, or when to order the next labels.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps track of your spices and 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 spices and jars 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.
Blends as recipes, runs as batches. Each blend is a recipe by weight, and each run is a batch that takes its spices off stock and records the spice lots it used, so a supplier's recall of a paprika lot shows which runs used it and which customers got them. A lot's certificate can sit in a field of your own on the lot.
Packaging on time. Jars, caps and labels come up on the reorder list in days of cover, with each supplier's lead time and minimum. How stock across places works is in multi-location inventory.
| The job | Spreadsheet | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Rub at the co-packer | Ask them | Stock at their site |
| Which paprika lot is in a jar | Unknown | Lots recorded on the run |
| A spice supplier's recall | Search the invoices | One recall report |
| Labels for the next run | Found short | Reorder list in days of cover |
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.