Your first year, month by month
Updated
Sequenced around the two thresholds and around the tests that take calendar time.
Weeks one to four
Answer the two threshold questions on paper before anything else: is there juice in it, and does it ferment.
Make small batches. Measure pH and Brix every time, not occasionally.
If it ferments, start tracking the ferment rather than the result: Brix falling over days tells you what the culture is doing.
Find out what license your state requires for the premises, because that decides where you can operate.
Months two and three
Settle a formula and reproduce it three times.
Now start the clocks: fill bottles, and hold them both refrigerated and warm, for the shelf life you intend to claim.
For a fermented product, send warm retains for alcohol testing at the end of that period. That result is the basis of the whole regulatory position.
Settle the container, and confirm it is pressure-rated if the product is live or carbonated.
Work out the full label content and check it fits.
Months four to six
Read the results before ordering packaging in quantity.
Get nutrition analysis done on the finished product.
First sales through a direct channel, market, own cabinet, local delivery, where the cold chain is yours.
Two products at most. Each carries its own testing.
The rest of the year
Only now consider wholesale, and understand before the first order that for a juice-containing product it ends the retail exemption.
Which means either standing up a HACCP plan or deciding to stay direct, a decision, not a discovery.
And re-run the warm-storage test whenever the formula, the culture, the process or the bottle changes.