Having somebody else make it
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Contract production solves several of this category's hardest problems at once, and it creates one.
A strong case in this category
A co-packer has the licensed premises, the pasteurizer, the cold storage, the filling line and frequently the HACCP plan.
All four of those are the expensive items, and the HACCP plan is the one a small producer finds hardest to build.
Mobile canning is the lighter version: they bring a line to you and you keep everything else.
What they need from you
A specification with Brix, pH, acidity and the sensory targets.
A process with real numbers, including any treatment step.
Shelf life and stability data.
Approved packaging and compliant label artwork.
Which is the recipe-to-product work again, and it is what lets them quote in a week rather than a month.
Who holds the regulatory position
The clause that matters most here.
If they run the 5-log step, whose HACCP plan covers it, who validates it, and do you receive the monitoring records?
Whose name is on the label as the responsible firm?
And if the product ferments, whose problem is it if it tests above 0.5 percent after distribution?
Their infrastructure does not remove your responsibility as the firm named on the label, and these are cheap to agree in advance.
Minimums and the live problem
Minimums are usually thousands of units per run, and a run cannot be topped up quickly.
And the specific difficulty: most co-packers are set up for stable products. A live, unpasteurized, cold-chain product is harder for them to handle and many will decline it or will want to pasteurize it.
Which means contracting out frequently comes with a product change, and that is a decision about what you are selling rather than about who makes it.