Do you have a food product currently on the market or a recipe for a new product that you would like to see on the shelves? Or perhaps you wish to market some of our house recipes under your own label?
Firefly Barbecue will provide you with a signed Non-disclosure Agreement prior to accepting a copy of your recipe. Upon receipt of this document, you would send a sample of your sauce or seasoning and a copy of your recipe and payment for the £200 R&D fee*. Samples will not be made until the R&D fees are paid. You may send it via registered mail so that you will have a signature showing we received the copy of your recipe. Our Research and Development Department will produce a sample, run the appropriate tests on the product and will contact you with a sample and a pricing structure.
It is important to realize in this process that manufacturers do not purchase inventory at the grocery store and Firefly Barbecue will attempt to get as close as possible to your flavor profile using our stock inventory.
* £200 R&D Fee only applies to recipes that are made with standard ingredients. If your recipe involves the use of expensive, exotic, or hard to source ingredients the fees can be as high as £400 per breakdown. Your payment of the R&D Fee does not constitute or imply ownership of the final manufacturing formula developed by Firefly Barbecue.
Firefly Barbecue is licensed and monitored through the FSA and HSE. These government agencies place requirements on the manufacturing of products that will ultimately be sold to the general public. Most of the requirements are fulfilled by Firefly Barbecue, however, a few of the requirements can only be fulfilled by the contract customer and would need to be met prior to Firefly Barbecue manufacturing any product for the customer.
The requirements that each customer would need to meet are outlined below. If you currently have your product on the market, chances are you have already fulfilled these requirements.
After Firefly Barbecue has received written or email acceptance of the final sample and pricing and prior to producing an order for you, Firefly Barbecue will require documentation of the requirements that need to be met by you, the customer. When the requirements have been met, Firefly Barbecue will begin producing your product. For questions or concerns please contact Firefly Barbecue.
Firefly Barbecue is an acidified glass packager, hot fill, pouch, PET jar and is licensed to produce many different products. These products might include, but are not limited to, the following types of products:
Whether your product is new to the market or an existing recipe, it is important to be specific with your formula. Firefly Barbecue can only produce a good sample if the information is correct to begin with. Here are some tips to think about while you are getting the recipe ready to send to our R&D team:
Expect to compromise a little on flavour. Most recipe development requests come to us in the form of a home-cooked or stove-top style recipe. We ask that you do not expect your sample to match your stove-top product exactly. The primary reason is that Firefly Barbecue does not purchase spices, tomato products, vegetables, oils, sugars, or any other inventory item from grocery stores or box stores. As a manufacturer, we use high quality bulk ingredients. Sometimes these items will carry a different flavor profile than those purchased in a grocery store or from a food-service provider.
Another thing to remember is that unless your product is currently on the market, the end consumer will not be looking for any difference in flavor between your stove-top recipe and our manufacturing formula as they will not know what your stove-top recipe would taste like. If the product is very close, the consumer will likely enjoy that product as much as you currently enjoy your home-made product.
A third reason is that in the manufacturing process, these recipes will need to be graduated from your stove-top recipe to our 60 or 90 litre formula. All ingredients are not linear in nature and Firefly Barbecue will make every effort to graduate the formula from your stove-top recipe to our sample batch, then to the manufacturing level as accurately as possible. Sometimes there are unavoidable and minor variances in flavor that will occur during this process.
REMEMBER: It is often virtually impossible to get a manufactured product to taste exactly like it does in your kitchen, so please do not keep a wonderful product from the market just because the flavor is not identical to what you would make at home.
Recipe Development will occur after Firefly Barbecue has signed a Confidential Disclosure Agreement (if applicable). Upon receipt of the Agreement, your company representative would need to sign the Agreement and mail a copy of the signature page, the recipe and the £200 recipe development fee to our R&D department. The recipe will then be examined by our personnel, supplies will be gathered and a small sample (usually 6 to 12 bottles) will be made. A couple of bottles of the sample will be shipped to your company for approval of the flavor along with a price quote (please provide your physical address for shipping purposes).
Firefly Barbecue will be happy to make up to three adjustments to any particular recipe to get the flavour as close as possible to what you are looking for. Please keep in mind that the flavour profile of some of the ingredients that we use may vary somewhat from what you may be using when creating the recipe (see Things to Consider).
The recipe development fee is £200 and is considered non-refundable.
