Supplier or Contract Manufacturer?

Hello @QC in NC, im no expert in this matter but i will share my humble thoughts and let the experts later judge me.  :spoton:

- Contract manufacturer is when you ask that company to produce your final product and not just a part of it. (I think).

- In this case if that ingredient is part of your HACCP, it can not be accounted as a contract manufacturer but as a supplier.

However, wait always for an expert's opinion.

Hope this helps.....

 

Hi All,

 

Our company is looking for someone to produce a hard-to-find ingredient on our behalf. It's something we could produce in-house but might be difficult for us due to cross-contamination issues. However, the requirements for approving a supplier vs. a contract manufacturer are really different per the SQF codes (we are SQF certified for both Safety and Quality). My question is: What makes the difference between a contract manufacturer and a supplier? 

 

We're not asking the outside firm to create a final product for us, just an ingredient. But in the way we're thinking about it now, since it is a unique, hard-to-find ingredient, that we would provide the recipe, production guidance, and legal support for the manufacturer. I feel like we're blurring the line between a contract manufacturer and an ingredient supplier, but I'm not sure how to call it. Maybe contract manufacturer refers just to finished, ready-to-sell product, but that's not clear in the code (or I missed it).

 

Thanks!  

 

A contract manufacturer is one that either makes your product and packages it into your branded packaging or packs a product into your branded packaging.

Either way and for all intents and purposes it appears to the consumer to come from your company even though made/packed by another company.

The major requirement is that a contract manufacturer will need to be SQF certified like your company is, or any GFSI Cert or as the last resort mirror all the requirements of your SQF program - my feeling is if a company is going to do that they might as well get certified.

I have a client that has five contract manufacturers and each one is SQF or BRC certified.  

There are a couple of other requirements for a contract manufacturer as well, such as agreements, etc.

What you have there however is not a contract manufacturer, just a supplier and if you send your secret ingredient list to them you better have a strong non-disclosure in place.

Good Morning

Our company obtains ingredients from outside sources for manufacturing our finished products and we consider them to be suppliers. This was also a topic that came up during our recent SQF re-certificaiton and the auditor held the same opinion. 

Hope this helps! 

They are a raw material supplier. They are providing a finished product that you will use to complete your finished product. No different than a packaging supplier that uses raw materials to make their packaging (paper or plastic, inks, adhesives etc.). They wouldn't be considered a contract manufacturer, they are a supplier to your finished product.