What to agree before a copack run

The specification

Everything the copacker will reproduce has to be written down, because they will make exactly what the document says rather than what you meant. Ambiguity gets resolved in their favor and at your cost.

Not a recipe. Weights of fruit and sweetener, the ratio they produce, the target soluble solids, the jar, the fill weight, the headspace, the process and the shelf life. If the finished product has to meet the standard of identity, say so explicitly, because that is a number they can hit or miss.

The overrun

Production runs do not land exactly on the number ordered, and who owns the difference is worth settling before it exists rather than after.

A run makes more or fewer jars than planned. Agree who owns the difference and at what price before it exists, in both directions.

A failed batch

Batches fail occasionally even in good hands. The question is whose fruit, whose time and whose jars absorb it, and the answer should not be discovered on the day.

A batch that misses the target reading is not a jam. Agree in advance whether it is reworked, sold as a fruit spread under a different label, or written off, and who pays.

The lot code

Whose numbering, and does it resolve to your batch record or theirs. If yours is the name on the jar, you need to be able to trace a complaint without asking them for permission.

The one people forget

There is a clause nobody thinks about until they need it, and by then it is not in the agreement.

What happens to your fruit if the run slips. Fruit does not wait, and a delayed run in September is a season lost rather than a date moved.

References