What Is The Process To Sell Your Own Label Barbeque Sauce?

by Jan
(Clearlake ca)

I am considering on making and marketing my own sauce. Can you refer me to who can tell me the process.

Answer:-

Hi Jan,

Before I offer any advice on your question please let me state that I have not made my own sauce for bottling so I can only help by giving you some ideas about how I would go about it and hopefully identify some of the pitfalls that you might encounter.

To start you out you might want to read this article Who Can Bottle Our BBQ Sauce that will give you some guidance as to the practicalities of bottling and also how you might want to use third parties to completely outsource the manufacturing process.

My experience also tells me that the place to start the process is with a business plan and in particular, the marketing element within that plan.

Without appearing flipant, the making and bottling of a sauce is relatively easy in that anyone can do it if they have the expertise to do it themselves or the money to pay someone to do it for them. It's the marketing plan where everything needs to start because this will determine:-

1. How much you plan to sell
   
2. How much you intend to charge
   
3. Your costs of sale (through third parties or direct over the internet)

Having thought and documented the above you can then look at your manufacturing, bottling and distribution costs and it's only when you have all this that you will be able to see whether your plans stack up and if there's a profit in the middle.

Assuming there is a profit, that's not the end of it. You need to think about how you get the product to market, which bits are you doing yourself and which bits will involve third parties.

When it's your own business you can afford to do stuff yourself and pay yourselves when the money comes in but that's not the case with your suppliers - you have to pay them on time.

Getting the balance right between money coming in from sales and money going out to pay suppliers is critical and if the latter exceeds the former (which it probably will in the early days) you need to have a way of funding this. Either by your own pot of cash or through a bank loan.

Assuming that you have positive outcomes to all these issues then not only might you have a business, you might have a business that can survive.

One last point from me with my internet marketing hat on. If you choose to sell direct over the internet, don't expect you can build a website today and sell product tomorrow. People won't just visit your website becuause it is there, it takes time and effort to build a website that has credibility both with the search engines and humans - we're talking months and years, not days and weeks. If anyone tells you different, don't believe them.

I hope that helps.

See Also:-

My Gourmet Grilled Hamburger Recipe
Barbecue Marinades
Homemade Barbecue Sauce
Brine Recipes

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