An enquiry that nobody can price quickly
A brand owner emails: can you make their granola, or sauce, or ready meal, in their packaging, at so many units a week, and what would it cost? The commercial manager forwards it to the development kitchen for a recipe estimate, to operations for a line and speed, to purchasing for ingredient and packaging prices. Each reply comes at a different time, in a different format.
Two weeks later a quote is ready. The brand owner has already had two others.
Why co-packing quotes are slow
Every enquiry is a little different, so there is no standard price. The information needed exists across the business, but it is not in a form the commercial team can use without asking three departments.
- Enquiries arrive as emails, decks or spreadsheets with different details missing.
- Ingredient prices for materials you do not already buy need supplier quotes.
- Line suitability and run rate depend on operations' judgement.
- Customer-supplied packaging and ingredients change the cost build-up.
- Capacity is not checked until after the quote is accepted.
What slow quotes cost
Lost enquiries, first of all. Beyond that, quotes built in a hurry can miss changeover time, minimum runs, packaging setup or storage, and a contract won at the wrong price is worse than one lost. And senior people across the business spend time on enquiries that were never likely to fit.
The quoting tool we build
- An enquiry form, used by your team or sent to the brand owner, captures product type, recipe or specification, pack format, volumes, delivery pattern and who supplies packaging and any ingredients.
- An AI step reads enquiries that arrive as emails or documents and pre-fills the form, marking what is missing so your team can ask in one go.
- The recipe is costed from your current ingredient prices, with new ingredients flagged for purchasing to price.
- Operations' line rates, crew sizes, changeover times and minimum run lengths are held in the tool, so labour and machine time are costed consistently.
- The tool checks the enquiry's volumes against planned capacity on the suitable lines and shows whether it fits.
- A draft quote with the cost build-up, your margin rules and the assumptions listed goes to the commercial manager to adjust and send.
| Cost element | Source |
|---|---|
| Ingredients | Current prices, new ones from purchasing |
| Packaging | Your prices or customer supplied |
| Labour and line time | Operations rates and run speeds |
| Changeovers and minimum runs | Operations rules |
| Storage and despatch | Your standard charges |
The commercial team sets the final price. The tool makes sure the cost behind it is complete.
What the commercial team gains
Enquiries also become a record. Over time you can see what kinds of work brand owners ask for, which ones you won and lost, and at what price, which is useful when deciding whether to invest in a new pack format or line.
Quotes that go out while the enquiry is still warm, built the same way every time, with their assumptions written down. Enquiries that do not fit your lines or capacity are spotted early, so you can say no quickly. And when a quote is accepted, the costing becomes the starting point for the product's real costing.
Does this sound like your enquiries?
- Co-packing quotes take weeks to prepare.
- Each quote needs input from three or four departments by email.
- Changeover and minimum run costs are sometimes missed.
- Capacity is checked only after winning the work.
- Enquiry details arrive incomplete and are chased piecemeal.