---
id: KB-AL-026
url: https://app.codecontract.io/help/food-and-beverage/manufacturing-for-someone-elses-brand
idioma: en
categoria: sector-alimentacion
subcategoria: conservas
audiencia: usuario
nivel: avanzado
actualizado: 2026-08-13
tambienEn: [es]
relacionados: [KB-AL-006, KB-NO-024, KB-AL-028]
citadoPor: [KB-AL-027]
---

# Manufacturing for someone else's brand

_You make it and someone else's name is on the jar. What to settle before the first run is who answers for what._

**Responde a:** private label manufacturing documentation · co-packing who is liable · i produce for another company what paperwork · contract manufacturing agreement food

You produce for a company that puts its name on the label. Everything works until someone asks about a batch: then two companies point at each other, two incomplete archives appear, and a label that names only one of them.

**Contract manufacturing** — You provide the process and often some of the raw materials; the client provides the brand, the recipe or the specifications, and does the selling. Documentarily it is two companies with two archives that have to fit together.

## What to divide up in writing before the first run

| What | Usually belongs to… | What fails |
| --- | --- | --- |
| The product specification | The client | It changes by email and nobody versions it |
| Raw materials and their suppliers | It depends, and that is the tangle | Each believes the other controls it |
| Labelling and its claims | The client | You print it without being able to verify it |
| **Production records** | **You** | **The only thing that can bound a batch** |

> [!IMPORTANT]
> **The production record is yours and is not handed over wholesale, but it must be consultable.** It is what protects you —showing what you did and how— and the only thing that bounds a problem to a few hours of line time rather than to the whole brand. A manufacturing contract that does not say which records you keep, for how long and how they are accessed leaves both parties blind on exactly the day sight is needed.

## The awkward conversation: who tells whom

1. **If you detect a problem** — Who you call, within what time, and who decides what happens.
2. **If the client detects it** — What information they give you and by when, so you can look.
3. **Who speaks to the authorities and the consumer** — Normally the brand owner, but it is worth writing down.
4. **And who bears the cost of a withdrawal** — What nobody wants to negotiate before, and everyone negotiates after, worse.

> [!WARNING]
> The commonest trap in these relationships: **the client changes the specification by email and production carries on with nothing updated**. An ingredient swapped, a new supplier, a different weight. Months later the product does not match its sheet and nobody knows from which batch it stopped matching. Every specification change needs a version, a date and the batch it applies from — and that is your work even though the decision is theirs, because it is your production record that will speak.

> [!NOTE]
> Which duties each party assumes when one company manufactures for another's brand, and who is named as responsible for the product, depends on food law and on what the contract says. **Your adviser settles that before the first run**; here we explain what that contract must say so that on the day of a problem there are not two companies looking at each other.

**Do I have to hand my records to the client?**

Consultable yes, handed over whole rarely. Agree it in writing.

**Who appears as responsible on the label?**

Normally whoever markets it, but that does not remove your records.

**What if the client changes the recipe midway?**

New version, date and the batch it applies from. Without that nothing can be bounded.

## Ejemplos

**The client changes an ingredient by email and production continues on the old sheet.**

- Versions every change with a date and the batch it applies from

→ You can say from when the product is the new one and from when it was the old.

**A problem appears and both companies believed raw material control was the other's.**

- Divides in writing who controls what before the first run

→ There is an owner for each item instead of two incomplete archives.

**Product must be withdrawn and nobody had discussed who bears the cost.**

- Writes down who notifies, who decides and who pays, before starting

→ The withdrawal happens while the cost is argued, rather than the reverse.

**The brand owner asks for documentation never agreed.**

- Writes down what each side provides before the first run

→ The request does not arrive as a surprise.

**An ingredient changes and the brand owner is unaware.**

- Communicates the change before producing

→ The label on their brand stays true.

**An end customer complains and it reaches the maker.**

- Checks that run's file

→ You answer with what was produced.