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Where to find a process authority

Updated October 2026

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What you are looking for Routes, cheapest first What to send What to expect back References

You cannot establish your own scheduled process. This is how to find someone who can, and what it will involve.

What you are looking for

A person or institution qualified to evaluate an acidified food process and issue a scheduled process. Usually a university food science department, a state extension program, or a private consultant with the relevant qualification.

They are not all equivalent in cost or in turnaround, and most small producers find the right answer is the nearest university program.

Routes, cheapest first

Your state extension food science program

Start here.

Often free or low cost to state residents, and they know your state licensing as well as the federal requirement. If they do not do evaluations they will name someone who does.

A university food venture center

Several take work from outside their own state.

Cornell's Food Venture Center is the best known; other land grant universities run equivalents. Expect a queue in spring.

A private consultant

Faster, more expensive.

Worth it when timing matters. Check the qualification rather than assuming it.

What to send

A finished formulation with percentages by weight, not a recipe you are still adjusting. Your actual method in the order you perform it. The container and closure you intend to use. Samples of the finished product in that container.

Submit the version you will actually make, at the volume you will make it. A material change after evaluation means paying and waiting again, and that is a common way this step costs double.

What to expect back

A written scheduled process with a number, specifying critical limits and the records you must keep. Weeks rather than days, and longest in spring when everyone is preparing for market season.

Read it rather than filing it. It tells you what you may and may not change, and producers routinely alter viscosity or particle size without realizing they have stepped outside their own process.

References

Cornell University, Cornell Food Venture Center, which acts as a process authority and publishes on co-packers. cals.cornell.edu

NC State Extension, Food Business. Acidified Foods Scheduled Processes "How To". foodbusiness.ces.ncsu.edu

21 CFR Part 114, Acidified Foods. Low-acid foods to which acid is added, water activity above 0.85, finished equilibrium pH 4.6 or lower reached within the time designated in the scheduled process. 114.3 excludes carbonated beverages, jams, jellies and preserves, foods stored, distributed and retailed under refrigeration, and acid foods including condiment sauces containing small amounts of low-acid food whose finished equilibrium pH does not significantly differ from the predominant acid. ecfr.gov

Written from published extension guidance and federal publications, not from a laboratory. Your state's requirements and your own process govern anything general said here.