What it costs to start

Cheap to make a batch and expensive to make a business, with the gap in the cold, the testing and the packaging.

Equipment

Vessels, a heat source or a heat exchanger, a chiller, a filler, a capper, a pH meter and a refractometer.

The chiller is the one people underbudget: cooling is required for carbonating, for stopping a hot process and for holding finished stock, and chilling capacity is expensive.

A commercial or shared kitchen may provide much of this, which is the usual route in and is worth pricing against buying.

Where the money actually goes

Cold storage, continuously. Not a purchase, a running cost, and it does not stop.

Packaging, with minimums in the thousands.

Freight on every case.

Raw materials are modest by comparison unless the base is real juice, which is the exception and can dominate.

Testing and validation

The line this category adds and few makers budget.

Nutrition analysis for the label.

Shelf life testing, which is calendar time rather than money.

Alcohol testing on retained samples, if the product ferments, per batch or per sampling plan, at a laboratory.

And process validation, if you need a 5-log step, through a process authority.

The packaging commitment

Pressure-rated bottles, closures, labels and cartons, each with a minimum, committed before the first sale.

Printed cans have the largest minimums of all, which is why mobile canning with shrink sleeves exists.

Buy small and badly priced while the product is settling. The saving on a long run is real and it is smaller than one reformulation or one change of bottle.

References