So… you’re looking for a beverage manufacturer?

Contents:

Types of Manufacturer

White-Label Make Sense When…

Co-Packing Makes Sense When…

White-Label Manufacturers

There are three main types of beverage manufacturers in the UK. Other parts of the world call them different things, but you should be able to get a good idea.

Brand-Owned Production

Think Coca-Cola with its own plants. These aren’t the kind of people that you’d be looking for if you’re looking to get something made.

White-Label / Private-Label Manufacturer

You adopt or lightly tweak a house recipe the factory already produces. The manufacturer supplies ingredients, packaging, and often even designs the label template.

Pros: Fast to market, predictable costs, low technical risk.

Cons: Limited flavour formats, higher per-unit price, recipe/IP often belongs to the manufacturer, packaging choices often fixed to their lines.

Contract Packer / Contract Bottler (Co-Packer)

You bring your formula, QA metrics, materials and specifics for methodology. The packer supplies the equipment, compliance, and trained staff to scale it.

Pros: Full control over flavour, sweeteners, functional additives, packaging formats (glass, PET, cans, pouches). IP stays with you.

Cons: More responsibility on your side for ingredient sourcing, food-safety documentation, artwork sign-off, market testing.

White label makes more sense when...

✓ The recipe is not the most important thing to you
✓ You're trying to meet a commercial gap in the market. Sales and marketing is more your thing
✓ Your recipe is almost identical to one that already exists, and someone already makes that as a white label product
✓ You want to test market demand without recipe development risk

Just be mindful that:

…Someone can copy your product at the same white label manufacturer quite easily
…Your differentiator is your branding, sales and marketing, not the taste or format
…You can't control any of the costs of manufacture
…There aren't very many white label drinks companies in the UK

If Contract Bottling is for You...

It's a harder path. You're responsible for all aspects of the manufacturing, even the bits that you don't know about. You have to be proficient, even if not an expert, in:

• Preservation - ensuring your product is safe and stable

• Formulation - how ingredients behave at commercial scale

• Commercial ingredients - both specification and supply chain

• Process requirements - how manufacturing affects your product

• Packaging - and how it all interacts with everything else
  

Sound overwhelming? It certainly can be. Most people underestimate what's involved until they're halfway through their first production run and discovering problems they didn't know existed (with some inevitable finger pointing).

If that's you... then we have some good news. We've been there, done that. Created and bottled recipes from scratch for the better part of 2 decades.

We've created a checklist that can help you out, and if you get stuck then feel free to give us a call. Just... do it early so you don't have to go over the same ground again...and again...

Of course… you’re here now, so why don’t you check out some of our free resources, and some of the services we offer?