Making it for somebody else
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Cafés, hotels, restaurants and retailers wanting their own label, which is steady work at known volumes.
A real market
A café wanting its own cold brew, a hotel wanting a house kombucha, a retailer wanting an own-label juice.
Known quantities, no shelf risk, and usually one product in one size.
What they are buying
Usually your existing product with their artwork.
Occasionally a bespoke formulation, which should be priced as development rather than absorbed, and which in this category means its own shelf life and threshold testing.
And a deadline, frequently tied to an opening or a menu launch.
Who carries the regulatory position
The clause that matters most, and it has four parts in this category.
Whose name is on the label as the responsible firm.
Whose HACCP plan covers the product, if there is juice in it, and note that supplying a business is exactly what ends the retail exemption, so a private-label order is the transition.
Who holds the alcohol testing, if it ferments, and who is responsible if it tests above 0.5 percent in their fridge.
Who owns the shelf life data, and who re-tests when anything changes.
Your name may not be on the bottle, and your responsibility for what you made does not move with the label.
What to agree
Quantity, price, date, artwork responsibility.
Storage and handling obligations on their side, in writing, because a chilled product in their stockroom is outside your control and inside your exposure.
What claims they may make, since a client describing your product as probiotic or as curing something has made a claim with your product inside it.
And check your insurance covers private-label work, which some policies treat differently.