1,076 Muffins in the Oven
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Muffin Ingredients, Check!
Great news this week! We've ordered all the ingredients! Well, except for an ingredient that we will be picking up the day before the trial.
The one ingredient that we were having supplier issues with ended up working itself out (I hope). The supplier was able to ship us enough samples of the ingredient to cover the trial production. Once we went through the timeline, we discovered that by the time the supplier restocks, we will be entering our first real production run. As long as there are no delays, the timing should be fine. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it stays that way.
The Trial Production Run
The last thing that needs to be done is packaging. The design is complete. Now, it's going through all the necessary approvals at the packaging supplier and the manufacturer. As soon as the packaging arrives at the manufacturer, we can conduct the trial production run. My plan is to travel down to Houston for it. I need to meet the woman I’ve been working with since September in person. I’m also dying to see their facility, the team, and the muffin production in real life!
In speaking with other food founders, timing production isn’t always straightforward. Even if you have a date set, one tiny little thing can pop up and push back production. If packaging gets delayed by a day, an ingredient arrives damaged, or not enough of an ingredient shipped, then production won't happen. There are so many variables that can impact whether a production run happens on time or not. Based on order statuses, the trial production should be the second or third week of July. But that’s only if everything goes smoothly.
During this trial run, we will be making ~1,076 muffins... That’s about 269 bags of mini muffins!!! While I do have a purpose for many, such as shelf life testing, marketing, social media content, and product photography, there are still a lot of muffins that will be leftover for taste testing.
That’s where you come in. Your feedback is SUPER important. I’ll be relying on your input as I continue to improve the muffin formula!