Contract manufacturing · Coimbatore

You perfected the recipe. We make ten thousand jars of it taste identical.

Co-packing for sauces, chutneys, spice blends and retort meals — from a 2,000-jar pilot run to full national supply.

Most food brands die in the gap between a recipe and a purchase order

The recipe works. Friends love it. A buyer at a retail chain has said the words "send me a sample and your costings". And then the founder discovers that scaling a pot of chutney to a 500-litre kettle is not multiplication — it is a different problem, with different physics, different microbiology and a paperwork trail that nobody warned them about.

That gap is the only thing we do. Nilgiri Foodworks has been a dedicated contract manufacturer since 2011: we own no brands of our own, we compete with none of our customers, and roughly a third of the labels on a modern Indian grocery shelf in the ambient sauces aisle have been through our kettles at some point.

What "co-packing" actually covers here

We are boring on purpose. Boring is what a buyer means when they say "consistent supply".

What we do not do is take equity, take your recipe, or lock you into a term you cannot leave. The formulation stays yours in writing, and you can walk with it — including the scaled version we developed with you — on thirty days notice.

The plant

Four lines, one building, 14,000 sq ft

Two hot-fill lines for sauces and chutneys (500 L and 1,200 L jacketed kettles), a dry blending and packing line for spice and masala, and a retort line for ready-to-cook pouches rated to 121°C. The site is BRCGS AA-graded, FSSAI-licensed, and holds USFDA facility registration and an APEDA organic scope, so a product made here can be exported without a second audit. Allergen segregation is physical, not scheduled: nut and sesame work runs in a separate room with its own air handling and its own staff uniforms.

Stainless steel jacketed kettles on a production floor

From your kitchen to a retail pallet

Typically fourteen to eighteen weeks, and we will tell you at week two if it is going to be longer.

  1. 1 · Discovery call

    Forty-five minutes on your recipe, target price, pack format and volume. Free, and we will say no here if we are the wrong plant for you.

  2. 2 · Bench trial

    ₹35,000, refunded against your first production run. You get three formulation variants, a costed BOM and honest notes on what will change at scale.

  3. 3 · Pilot run

    A 2,000-unit batch on the real line, so you have sellable stock and a genuine cost per unit rather than an estimate.

  4. 4 · Shelf-life & compliance

    Accelerated and real-time studies, nutritional analysis from a NABL lab, label artwork checked against FSSAI display rules.

  5. 5 · Scheduled production

    Rolling forecast, twelve-week visibility, minimum 5,000 units per run. Stock ships from our warehouse or straight to your 3PL.

Traceability that survives a recall drill

Every batch carries a lot code that resolves back to the goods-in docket for each raw material, the operator on the line, the kettle temperature log and the pallet it left on. We run a mock recall every quarter and close it in under three hours — the certification scheme allows four.

Batch record folders and a lot-code label

Small runs are welcome, not tolerated

Plenty of plants quote a small brand politely and then never schedule it. Our minimum is genuinely 5,000 units and about 40% of our runs are at or near it. Changeovers are costed into the shop rate rather than billed as a penalty, so a short run is expensive per unit but never punitive.

Jars moving along a filling line

The questions founders actually ask

Do you take ownership of my recipe?

No. The formulation, including any scaled or reformulated version we develop together, is yours and is assigned to you in the manufacturing agreement. We hold it under NDA, in a locked formulation system that our production staff can read but not export.

What does a run actually cost?

For a 250 g hot-filled sauce at 5,000 units, expect ₹28–₹42 per unit all-in including glass, cap, label and shrink — the spread is almost entirely ingredient cost. We give you a line-by-line BOM, not a single number, so you can see exactly where the money goes.

Can you source packaging?

Yes, and we usually should — our glass and closure pricing at volume is better than a young brand can get alone. You are free to nominate your own supplier; we just need the spec sheet and a sample for line trials four weeks ahead.

Will you export for me?

We manufacture export-compliant and hand over documentation — health certificate, certificate of origin, phytosanitary where needed. We are not a freight forwarder, but we work with three regularly and will introduce you.

What if my product fails its shelf-life study?

It happens, usually on water activity or on a preservative-free brief that was never going to hold. We reformulate once at no charge. If the brief itself is impossible we will tell you at bench-trial stage rather than take the production booking.

Notes from the plant

Why your chutney separates at 5,000 jars but never did at five
Formulation4 June 2026

Why your chutney separates at 5,000 jars but never did at five

Shear rate, pectin behaviour and the unglamorous truth about hydrocolloid stabilisers in a jacketed kettle.

Reading an FSSAI label rejection
Compliance21 April 2026

Reading an FSSAI label rejection

The six things that get artwork bounced, ranked by how often we see them. Font size on the nutritional panel is number one, every time.

What a co-packer wishes you knew before the first call
Getting started9 February 2026

What a co-packer wishes you knew before the first call

Bring a target retail price and a pack format. Bring those two and we can be useful in twenty minutes.

The Kettle Notes

One email a month for food founders: costing breakdowns, regulation changes, and what is happening to ingredient prices. No sales pitch, unsubscribe in one click.

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Talk to the technical team

Address
Plot 44, SIDCO Industrial Estate, Kurichi, Coimbatore 641021, Tamil Nadu
Phone
+91 422 400 0188
Email
newbrands@nilgirifoodworks.in
Hours
Mon–Sat 9:00–18:00 IST · plant runs two shifts