Pre-Feasibility Checklist

We work with food start-ups at all stages of their journey, from early-stage product development through to scale-up manufacturing and commercial growth. We enjoy working with ambitious founders and new brands, and we are genuinely invested in the success of the businesses we partner with.

That investment works both ways. When we take on a new brand, we commit time, resource, and expertise to your product and your relationship with us. That is why we ask a lot of questions before we agree to work together. If your business is not in the right place, the risk falls on us both.

Before you get in touch, work through the checklist below. It is not designed to put you off. It is designed to save you time, give you a clear picture of where you are, and make sure that when we do speak, we can have a productive and honest conversation.

If you have solid answers across most of these areas, we would love to hear from you. If there are gaps, that is useful to know too.

Your Business

A food brand is a business first. Manufacturing comes later. The strongest brands we work with have solid commercial foundations before they approach us.

• Have you set up a formal business entity, such as a limited company?
• Do you have appointed directors with defined roles and responsibilities?
• Is your business registered with HMRC and filed with Companies House?
• Do you have appropriate commercial insurance in place?
• Have you taken legal advice on contracts, supplier agreements, and your route to market?
• Have you considered trademarks and other intellectual property protection for your brand?
• Do you have an accountant managing your books, VAT, and banking?
• Is your business sufficiently capitalised to fund a launch, including trials, packaging, stock, and a period of trading before you see a return?
• Do you have a business plan, financial forecast, and cash flow projection you could share with a partner?

We will want to understand the shape and health of your business before we discuss manufacturing. A well-structured business with a clear plan gives both parties the best chance of success.

Your Market

A great product still needs a viable market. We will ask these questions, so it is worth asking them of yourself first.

• Have you clearly defined your target consumer and the market you are entering?
• Is there a genuine gap or need for your product, or is it a crowded space?
• Have you stress-tested your numbers? Do you know your cost price, RRP, and the margins required across the supply chain?
• Have you accounted for marketing costs, particularly if you are selling direct to consumer?
• Is your product genuinely differentiated? What stops a competitor copying it?
• Is it commercially viable at scale, or does it only work as a hand-made, kitchen-produced item?

Your Brand

We manufacture the product. You own the brand. It needs to be ready.

• Do you have a brand name, logo, and visual identity in place?
• Have you defined your brand guidelines?
• Is your packaging and label design developed, or at least briefed to a designer?
• Do you have a website and social media presence, or a clear plan to launch one?
• Have you considered sustainability credentials, provenance of ingredients, and how these align with your brand values?

Your Product

This is where we get specific, and where many start-ups discover they are earlier in the process than they thought.

• Is your product frozen or chilled? We manufacture frozen ready-to-eat products. Our chilled products are typically pre-frozen. Does this work for your concept? Find out more about products we produce here
• Have you developed your recipe to a point where it can be replicated consistently?
• Do you have a costed recipe in spreadsheet format, with metric quantities?
• Have you completed kitchen trials? Can you make it reliably at a small scale?
• Have you considered what changes when you move from hand-made to factory production? Scale affects texture, structure, cook times, and yield.
• Do you have a clear production method, including temperatures, timings, and critical control points?
• Have you considered allergens, and do you have ingredient specifications in place?
• Have you thought about nutritional values and whether you will need nutritional labelling?
• Have you developed a product specification document?
• Have you considered all food labelling legal requirements, including PPDS and Natasha’s Law where relevant?
• Does your product fall within our capabilities? We specialise in bakery, pastry, savoury goods, miniature formats, snacks, and coated products. We are not a ready meals factory, a confectionery manufacturer, or a large-scale industrial bakery. Please review what we do before getting in touch.

We can support you through the manufacturing journey, but we are not a product development agency. We expect your product to be developed and trialled before you approach us. We are not in a position to develop your concept from scratch, fund trials on your behalf, or secure listings for your product.

Compliance and Food Safety

Food manufacturing is a heavily regulated industry. As a food business operator, the compliance obligations sit with you, not just with us.

• Have you registered your food business with your local authority (Environmental Health)?
• Do you understand your responsibilities under food safety law?
• Are you compliant with a business laws (including the Companies Act) and especially those laws involving employment of people and the food industry?
• Are you aware of the accreditation standards relevant to your target retail or foodservice channels, such as BRCGS?
• Do you have, or are you working towards, a Food Safety and Quality Policy? Here is a copy of ours.
• Do you understand the allergen controls and declarations that will be required on your product?

Your Supply Chain and Route to Market

We need to understand where your product is going before we can discuss how we will make it.

• Have you decided on your sales channels? These might include retail, foodservice, direct to consumer, wholesale, or export.
• Do you have listings confirmed, or a credible plan and timeline to achieve them?
• Have you considered your packaging format and pack sizes?
• Have you thought about minimum order quantities? Our MOQs are small compared to most manufacturers, typically around three to five pallets per SKU, but they still need to be supported by a realistic annual volume forecast.
• Can you provide a first-year volume forecast that links back to your business plan?
• Have you mapped your supply chain from our factory to your end customer? Find out more about our supply chain here.

Where Are You Now?

If you have worked through this list and have confident answers across most sections, we would be very pleased to hear from you.

If there are gaps, it is worth being honest about what they are. Some are things we can help with as part of an ongoing relationship. Others will need to be resolved before we can have a productive first conversation.

To give you a clear picture, here are the types of enquiries we are not able to progress:

• Products that fall outside our manufacturing capabilities, including ambient products, confectionery, heavy-duty forming, IQF processing, and raw fish or meat preparation
• Products that are still at concept stage, with no kitchen trials, no costed recipe, and no commercial plan in place
• Arrangements where we are asked to carry the financial risk of development, trials, or business investment on your behalf
• Businesses where compliance, food safety, and labelling are being treated as someone else’s responsibility

We have learned from experience that the partnerships which work best are built on preparation, transparency, and shared commitment from the very beginning. We look forward to hearing from businesses that are ready for that.