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11/5/2008
Playing Both Sides of Contract Manufacturing
Playing Both Sides of Contract Manufacturing
By Bob Sperber, Plant Operations Editor
FoodProcessing.com
Partnering with others to make your product -- or theirs -- offers benefits to both partners.
In addition to running their own products on their own production lines, food companies of all types and sizes
routinely pack products for customers who want their own label on the product, or don’t want any label at all.
Then there are food companies who call on outside plants for a new product launch, a test market or in some cases:
everything.
“I don’t know how to run a manufacturing facility, and I never wanted to run one,” says Patty Stewart, a former
Chicago stock broker whose celiac disease -- and accompanying gluten sensitivity -- led her to develop yummy-healthy
cookie recipes that in the past two years have landed her retail chain accounts, a web business and a small plant
that her business would quickly outgrow.
“The little bakery we were working out of grew so fast, I had to make a decision,” she says. And this past summer,
her company, Whole Bakers (www.wholebakers.com/) , gave all of its production to PacMoore (www.pacmoore.com), a
contract mixing, blending and packaging specialist based in nearby Hammond, Ind.
The Whole Bakers line of gluten-free products is low-volume and labor-intensive, but it enabled contract
manufacturer PacMoore to add retail capability to its portfolio. “I just figured that I would focus on my
strength and focus on media and distribution and getting our cookies in every grocery store all over the
country,” she continues. “That’s where I’m strong. And where my weaknesses are, I can turn that over to the
professionals.”
Working from her strengths, she’s made contacts with “so many different people on the customer side, and some
very high profile media outlets, from TV shows and magazines to online outlets.” Freed of production chores,
Stewart can now give full attention to sales and marketing, new cookie formulations and eventually line extensions,
including muffins, bread crumbs, pizza crusts and, in the future, extruded snacks. She’ll have pretty much a full
line of certified gluten-free baked goods.
But most of the dollars and products trading hands don’t involve start-ups. In fact, most of PacMoore’s business
comes from Fortune 100 food companies, which generally call on the company for ingredient blends to be further
processed. “That’s our bread and butter,” says Chris Bekermeier, vice president of sales and marketing, “but we’re
moving to put more retail capability in our portfolio.” Whole Bakers is a step in that direction, as are other
consumer brands now in talks with PacMoore. Beckermeier sees expanded retail capabilities as “an opportunity to
offer more value.”
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