We are SALSA Registered, so you can be assured that your product is manufactured to the highest standard in a safe environment.
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. Your payment of the R&D Fee does not constitute or imply ownership of the final manufacturing formula developed by Firefly Barbecue. This is not new product development.
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.
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:
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:
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 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.