DevilDuck
02-12-2008, 12:35 PM
Geez... I took a class last night at a commercial kitchen that's run by the City of Albuquerque. I really didn't learn anything new, but it was good to see I've been researching all the right stuff. Oh..there was this little tidbit on tracking your batches and batch ingredients, batch variants, supplier tracking, distributer tracking, and mass customer tracking....you know, the "fun" part of running a business.
Anyway, on the way home, I started crunching numbers. Probably not the best thing to do before business starts, but I was just running some numbers through my head. All I could come up with was spend, spend, spend. Then I started thinking about how many bottles sold would cover the cost of this, that, and the other.
The only thing I can say... I hope everyone on this site buys 8 bottles of each sauce every week for 3 years!!!
For those of you looking to go into the business of selling your sauce, salsa, dry rub, etc., be prepared to shell out some money...lots of it. There are fees for EVERYTHING. So far, the only free thing I found was filling with the FDA for the Bio-terrorism Act.
New Mexico is pretty lenient as far as package labeling goes, but... It all has to be approved by the Health Department. So, think twice about calling your product "Ass Magma". Especially when using a city run facility.
Another thing you have be aware of, is how you're going to store your finished product. I'm not 100% clear on this yet, but from what I can gather, I may not be able to store my finished product at my house. Yep... I may have to rent a spot to store everything before shipping it out. That means, even though I'm running my business out of my home, I have to go somewhere to pick up my bottles, pack them, and ship them. So, even though you might be thinking of using a co-packer, you have to be able to store your product in an approved space. Ask your co-packer if they can store product for you and how much it will cost.
Your recipe.
As much as you and all of your friends love it, it will be scrutinized by the Health Department. They will want a complete rundown of how it all comes together. New Mexico likes to have a flowchart that separates out your perishable, non perishable, and non food (bottles, jars, caps, lids, etc...) and shows how everything comes together as well as the Critical Control Points of the process. A CCP can be something as simple as, "Make sure temperature reaches 195F and stays at that temperature for 15 minutes." Or, "Sterilize Bottles".
In other words, they don't want a recipe written down that looks like it came out of a cookbook.
Mass Quantities.
I don't know about the rest of you, but when I make sauce in my house, the recipe is for maybe 25oz. That's 5 woozies. Easy to control, easy to bottle. When it's time to make the big step of "going pro", your going to be making gallons of this stuff. Common sense tells you to just multiply your recipe to make it work. Well, if you have any kitchen experience, you know that's not the case. You're going to have to make practice runs to get it right. Your garlic may be off a bit, or too much vinegar. You'll have to figure out how to adjust your mass recipe so it tastes like your small homemade batch. So, get it right before you submit anything to be approved...and that includes your Ph levels.
There's a lot more to it, but this post is getting long. I just wanted to share a little bit of what I'm looking at so all of you can enjoy what I have to offer.
Anyway, on the way home, I started crunching numbers. Probably not the best thing to do before business starts, but I was just running some numbers through my head. All I could come up with was spend, spend, spend. Then I started thinking about how many bottles sold would cover the cost of this, that, and the other.
The only thing I can say... I hope everyone on this site buys 8 bottles of each sauce every week for 3 years!!!
For those of you looking to go into the business of selling your sauce, salsa, dry rub, etc., be prepared to shell out some money...lots of it. There are fees for EVERYTHING. So far, the only free thing I found was filling with the FDA for the Bio-terrorism Act.
New Mexico is pretty lenient as far as package labeling goes, but... It all has to be approved by the Health Department. So, think twice about calling your product "Ass Magma". Especially when using a city run facility.
Another thing you have be aware of, is how you're going to store your finished product. I'm not 100% clear on this yet, but from what I can gather, I may not be able to store my finished product at my house. Yep... I may have to rent a spot to store everything before shipping it out. That means, even though I'm running my business out of my home, I have to go somewhere to pick up my bottles, pack them, and ship them. So, even though you might be thinking of using a co-packer, you have to be able to store your product in an approved space. Ask your co-packer if they can store product for you and how much it will cost.
Your recipe.
As much as you and all of your friends love it, it will be scrutinized by the Health Department. They will want a complete rundown of how it all comes together. New Mexico likes to have a flowchart that separates out your perishable, non perishable, and non food (bottles, jars, caps, lids, etc...) and shows how everything comes together as well as the Critical Control Points of the process. A CCP can be something as simple as, "Make sure temperature reaches 195F and stays at that temperature for 15 minutes." Or, "Sterilize Bottles".
In other words, they don't want a recipe written down that looks like it came out of a cookbook.
Mass Quantities.
I don't know about the rest of you, but when I make sauce in my house, the recipe is for maybe 25oz. That's 5 woozies. Easy to control, easy to bottle. When it's time to make the big step of "going pro", your going to be making gallons of this stuff. Common sense tells you to just multiply your recipe to make it work. Well, if you have any kitchen experience, you know that's not the case. You're going to have to make practice runs to get it right. Your garlic may be off a bit, or too much vinegar. You'll have to figure out how to adjust your mass recipe so it tastes like your small homemade batch. So, get it right before you submit anything to be approved...and that includes your Ph levels.
There's a lot more to it, but this post is getting long. I just wanted to share a little bit of what I'm looking at so all of you can enjoy what I have to offer.