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Add some Award‑winning BBQ sauces & rubs – crafted in Manchester, loved across the UK.

Co Manufacturing - Barbecue Sauce Production Services

FireFly Barbecue specialises in manufacturing barbecue sauce, rubs, seasoning, and other sauces using only the highest-quality ingredients worldwide.

SALSA

We are SALSA Registered, so you can be assured that your product is manufactured to the highest standard in a safe environment.


Where to Start

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 may you wish to market some of our house recipes under your label?

Firefly Barbecue will provide you with a signed Non-disclosure Agreement before accepting a copy of your recipe. Upon receipt of this document, you will send a sample of your sauce or seasoning, a copy of your recipe, and payment for the 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 a copy of your recipe. Our Research and Development Department will produce up to a maximum of four samples, run the appropriate tests on the product and contact you with a sample and a pricing structure. If after three trial samples, you are not satisfied with the trial sample, we will ask you for a detailed recipe including weights, a detailed ingredients list, and the manufacturing process.

It is essential to realise 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 flavour profile using our stock inventory.

* £280 R&D Fee only applies to recipes made with standard ingredients.  If your recipe uses expensive, exotic, or hard-to-source ingredients, the fees can be as high as £400 per breakdown. 

Requirements

Firefly Barbecue is licensed and monitored through the FSA and HSE. These government agencies require 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 can only be fulfilled by the contract customer and would need to be met before Firefly Barbecue manufactures any product for the customer.

The requirements that each customer would need to meet are outlined below. If your product is on the market, you have already fulfilled these requirements.

After Firefly Barbecue has received written or email acceptance of the final sample and pricing and before producing an order for you, It will require documentation of the requirements that you, the customer, must meet. When the requirements have been met, Firefly Barbecue will begin producing your product. For questions or concerns, please get in touch with Firefly Barbecue.

Products

Firefly Barbecue is an acidified glass packager, hot fill, pouch, and PET jar licensed to produce many products. These products might include, but are not limited to, the following types of products:

  • Barbecue Sauce
  • Spaghetti or pasta sauce
  • Jams or Jellies
  • Marinades
  • Pizza Sauce
  • Other sauces or tomato-based condiments
  • Seasonings
  • Spice Rubs

Helpful Tips

Whether your product is new to the market or an existing recipe, it is essential to be specific with your formula. Firefly Barbecue can only produce a good sample if the information is correct. Here are some tips to think about while you are getting the recipe ready to send to our R&D team:

  1. If possible, keep it simple and standard. A recipe with 25 ingredients will be more costly than one with 10.
  2. Avoid building a recipe around a name-brand product. If possible, try the recipe with more cost-effective generic ingredients. Some name-brand products are not available in bulk or food service sizes, and some may even require a licensing agreement for use in your recipe.
  3. Avoid using pre-packaged seasoning blends such as taco seasoning, Mrs Dash or guacamole mix, as these are very costly and usually unavailable in bulk. Be creative and develop your flavour profile by blending ingredients such as garlic powder, black pepper, salt, ground celery, cumin, etc.
  4. Avoid using blended, canned products such as Tomato soup or baked beans as these can only be purchased in small cans, making the manufacturing process difficult.
  5. BE ACCURATE IN YOUR INFORMATION:  If you are using a #10 or 3.75kg bottle of ketchup, please state that in your recipe.  If you are using raw vegetables, please give the total weight of the vegetables used rather than a count. (example: 336 grams of green bell pepper instead of 1 green bell pepper).  If you are measuring out dry ingredients instead of weighing them, please convert those measurements to weight.  If this is not possible, please clarify your measurements using terms such as level teaspoon, rounded teaspoon or heaping teaspoon. Please convert measurements such as a ‘pinch’ or ‘dash’ into weights, as the meaning of this type of measurement has eroded over the years to mean many things to many people.
  6. If using branded products, state which brands each company uses different formulas.
  7. ****Accurate measurements of all ingredients are essential—Inc Oil for frying.
  8. The methods of cooking and multiple stages can add additional costs.

Things to Consider

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 flavour 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 flavour 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 homemade product.

A third reason is that in manufacturing, these recipes must be graduated from your stove-top recipe to a 100-litre formula. All ingredients are not linear 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 flavour 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 fantastic product from the market just because the flavour is not identical to what you would make at home.

Recipe Development

Recipe Development will occur after Firefly Barbecue has signed a Confidential Disclosure Agreement (if applicable). Upon receipt of the Agreement, your company representative will need to sign the Agreement and mail a copy of the signature page, the recipe, and the recipe development fee to our R&D department. Our personnel will examine the recipe, gather supplies, and make a small sample (usually 6 to 12 bottles). A couple of sample bottles will be shipped to your company for approval of the flavour, along with a price quote (please provide your physical address for shipping purposes).

Firefly Barbecue will be happy to make up to four adjustments to any recipe to get the flavour as close as possible to what you want. Please keep in mind that the flavour profile of some of our ingredients may vary somewhat from what you may be using when creating the recipe (see Things to Consider). Once you are happy with the trial samples from the product development, we would always recommend making a larger pre-production batch of 50l to 100l before going into full-scale production. This is the last opportunity to fine-tune your recipe before it goes into production.


Important Information

  • Product recipes must be developed to manufacturing levels according to the size increments employed by Firefly Barbecue (See Recipe Development). For many types of products, Firefly Barbecue would carry the raw materials year-round, thus requiring no contract for production; however, if your product requires an inventory item or glass that is not usually carried in stock and cannot be used by any other contract, Firefly Barbecue would require a signed contract to indemnify our company against any loss that may occur if we no longer produce your products.
  • Firefly Barbecue does not purchase labels; however, you may have your labels shipped to our company for application at no extra charge. This only applies to labels that we can use on our label machine.  Regarding scheduling our production run, most customers will be allowed to pay at the time of pickup or before shipping the product.  Some customers will be required to pay ½ down at the time of the order and the remainder upon pickup or shipping if a large amount of inventory must be paid for immediately by Firefly Barbecue. New customers, especially those not currently on the market, are not automatically given extended payment terms until a relationship and credit agreement have been established, which will take an approximate year of doing business together and will depend upon ordering frequency and past payment history.  Firefly Barbecue will need an average of 2 weeks lead time for all orders. Firefly Barbecue provides all containers, closures and raw materials.
  • Wholesale: This applies to any product purchased by your company for resale under the Firefly Barbecue-owned label. A wholesale customer must meet the minimum order requirements. For more information, don't hesitate to contact Firefly Barbecue.
  • Pricing and Minimum Order Requirements: Our company can produce any size order you may need; however, the minimum order for any particular product is 30kg of seasonings and 100-litre sauces. When quoting the price, Firefly Barbecue will include pricing for the minimum order and the first price break at one full day’s run of the product. No estimates or pricing will be offered until we have examined the recipe.
  • None Payment: All goods remain the property of Firefly Barbecue Ltd until paid for in full. We reserve the right to sell any products, any property owned by the debtor to pay any outstanding debts.