Top 5 Reasons You Need A Commercial Beverage Formulation
Top 5 Reasons You Need A Commercial Beverage Formulation.
You came up with a great idea for a brand new drink. You’ve created your drink several times. You’ve made it at home adjusting ingredients, quantities and flavor profiles along the way. After many attempts at creating your perfect drink you are really happy with it. But now what?
Are you looking to make your new beverage available to more people than at a small house event? Then you’ll need a commercial beverage formulation.
What is a commercial beverage formulation? It’s your scientific version of your recipe/formula. This scales the ingredients and process to create up to 1,000 gallons of the beverage. The commercial formulation is developed by a specialist or food chemist using commercially viable ingredients and techniques making the beverage scalable.
Why would you need a scientific beverage recipe/formula? There are a lot of reasons that you would want a commercial beverage formulation. Today, we will focus on the Top 5 reasons you need a commercial beverage formulation.
#1 Branding: Your drink idea is unique and different than what’s currently in the market, right? If so, what makes it stand out? Even if you’re able to convey how your drink differs from everything else in the marketplace. What is it that consumers can expect from your beverage? This is called your branding. It is vital in your success as a beverage product.
Your Signature: People don’t ask for a cola drink, they demand to have a Coke® which has a signature cola profile. For example, when Coke® tried to change their formula in 1985 fans demanded the original Coke® return. You will want to have your own commercial beverage formulation. This will be known as your signature drink, that people ask for your drink by name.
Proprietary Property: Going to great lengths to create this commercial beverage formulation is your intellectual property and should be held in high confidentiality. This scientific drink recipe/formula is proprietary property and you will want to protect it. There are degrees to which you can protect your beverage formulation from a trade secret to getting it trademarked.
#2 Consistency: Have you ever been to a restaurant that had you raving about the food and then the next time you visit you’re greatly disappointed? A great beverage will need to taste great not just the first time someone drinks it. The drink will need to be great every single time someone drinks it. You created an amazing drink with a specific taste. However, you’re unsure how to recreate it. Your beverage formulation will include the exact measurements of ingredients you want in your drink as well as methods needed to provide a greater shelf life.
Characteristics: Taste is not the only thing that your drink formulation will need. You will want to also consider sweetness, smell, appearance, and the mouthfeel that you want your drink to have. Yes, mouthfeel is something you’ll want to consider as your drink may be more viscous.
Dependable Suppliers: Making your drink at home, there’s not a lot of risk of having all of the ingredients available, but when it comes to creating your drink for a mass market you’ll want to ensure that you have a dependable source for your ingredients. While this may be thought of as a supply chain concern, when you develop a drink formulation unique, hard to find and highly tariffed ingredients are things that would play a part in consistently making your drink at scale.
Final Formulation: You’ll want to sample your initial beverage formulation to see if it is to your liking. Most likely you’ll have several rounds of revision to get your drink to where you want it to be. Once, you experience the perfect drink recipe/formula, that becomes your final formulation. Check out Drinkpreneur’s definition of a final formulation here.
#3 Safety: Creating a drink for immediate consumption is very different from having it in a small batch or mass produced.
Shelf Life: You’ll need to consider the shelf life of your drink. This involves the use of different methods used to extend shelf life.
Quality Control: You’ll need to consider Quality Control. This takes into account contamination that may occur during the manufacturing process, supplies being used, etc. in order to make your drink 100% safe for the consumer.
Health Considerations: Lastly there are health considerations like allergen restrictions ,for those with certain allergic responses, can be an awful experience.
#4 Marketability: Your drink idea is different from what’s on the market, but have you considered if there’s a reason for it? How does your drink match with the current trends in beverages? It’s true that you want to stand out. Yet, if the current trend is for more natural ingredients such as plant based you want to stay as close to nature as possible.
Drink Benefits: What is undeniable is that a lot of consumers are looking to consume drinks that have some type of health benefits and/or functional benefits. Such things as heart health, increased focus or faster muscle recovery. Sounds like something that you’re interested in? Well, you will need to be able to prove these health claims.
Trendy Labels: You hear a bunch of buzz words for food and drinks all of the time, right? Well, you aren’t able to just slap GF, Organic, Dairy Free print onto your drink and call it a day. If your drink truly fits one of the above categories you will need to have it certified. Having help through this process makes it a lot easier and less stressful.
#5 Scalability: You know how when you cook for an event a recipe turns out wonderfully, but when you make the same recipe/formula for a large function it does not turn out as planned. This is true in the development of your beverage.
Same Page: Now that you’ve gone through the past four hurdles, you want to scale your drink to a larger market. Your commercial beverage formulation helps you do this so that every partner, investor, manufacturer and supplier are on the same page. Your increased ingredient supply, manufacturing, packaging and distributors all work off of the same blueprint.
Exponential Increases: Doubling, quadrupling, 100X your drink recipe/formula may need to be adjusted. This is so you end up with the same flavor profile, look and feel as your smaller batches. You’ll want to be aware of how to navigate these changes as you introduce more and more variables into your drink processing and distribution.
You started with a dream, idea, or concept to bring a unique product to the World. But you didn’t know that there were all of these considerations to take into account!
Don’t worry, it’s definitely achievable. Now you are equipped with the considerations that you need to be aware of. Knowing the Top 5 Reasons You Need A Commercial Beverage Formulation you are better equipped to produce your product and bring it to life.
You will need a company that guides you through the whole process. There are companies out there that will formulate products for you, give you a range of contacts and then send you on your way. Msat Consulting will guide you through the entire process. We will be on site for trials and runs as needed, and educate you on troubleshooting so you can be an expert on your product.
