You’ve poured all your passion, hard work, and ingenuity into creating a sensational beverage. It has all the right ingredients and palate-pleasing features you’ve envisioned from the start, and you feel like it’s time to take the next step: mass production.
At this stage, perhaps you feel confident enough to take the leap of launching a full-scale production line. After all, with a beverage this good, you’ll want to start delivering your smile-worthy sips to your customers right away.
However, leaping headfirst into a full launch isn’t your only option.
Instead, you can choose to start slow with a pilot run, the small-scale solution you need to make your big launch extraordinary. If you’re not convinced yet, stick with us—there are many benefits of pilot runs to discover.
Beverage Business Basics: What is a Pilot Run?
A pilot run is a small-scale production of your product. Whether you’re an established business or a brand-new company, a pilot run is a crucial opportunity to preview and test out your product ahead of a full launch.
Beverage production companies like Wildpack offer flexible run sizes and orders, making it easy to start with a pilot run. This helps you ensure the outcome of your investment without having to pay for a full-scale production upfront.
A pilot run also gives you the chance to build a relationship with your production facility, which will be vital for your long-term success. Then, after a successful pilot run, you’ll be able to work with them directly to make any adjustments and scale up your production.
Benefits of Investing in a Pilot Run
Now that you know what a pilot run is, let’s give you a taste of all the advantages they have to offer—and why you should consider using a pilot run to test your next beverage launch.
#1 You Get to Evaluate Your Production Process
Even if you have a clear vision for the large-scale success of your beverage launch, it might be hard to foresee what happens in between. A pilot run allows you to:
- Preview the look of the final product
- Learn about the co-packing facility’s processes and procedures
- Set up a smooth process of communication with the production company
- Learn about the logistics of manufacturing, producing, packaging, and distributing the product
- Plan for distribution based on the packing facility’s lead and shipping times
#2 You Can Fine-Tune Your Product
It’s so close you can almost taste it—quite literally. At this point, you’ve probably already done lots of tastings, made flavor adjustments, and strategized the artwork and the look your beverage will have when it arrives in the supermarkets or at your customers’ homes.
Still, you want to ensure your launch delivers the most ideal version of your product to customers. If you’ve never held those finished cans in-hand, it’s harder to predict any minor differences that may occur when your product is produced at scale by commercial-grade equipment. A pilot run is your opportunity to test out the product, spot quality issues, and ensure it’s perfect before you make your first impressions.
#3 You’ll Lower Your Level of Risk
A full-scale beverage run can cost anywhere from $100,000 to $200,000. If you’re just getting started, that means you’d be taking a financial risk without having ever seen the final product you’ll end up with. This is an especially big leap for smaller companies who depend on investors and sales to make their business profitable.
Then, if anything goes wrong, you could end up with a faulty product you can’t sell, or end up having to recall.
By opting to start with a pilot run, you could potentially save tens of thousands of dollars in the long term. Then, if anything isn’t precisely how you want it, you have a chance to make any needed adjustments before going all in.
#4 You Have Resources to Start Building Your Company
Getting your product out in front of potential vendors and investors is an important part of any business’s growth.
While you could take unpackaged samples and artwork mockups to show your prospective business partners before the big launch, it can be difficult for them to get a feel for the true quality and originality of your product without seeing or tasting the end result.
After a pilot run, you’ll have polished and professional samples of your beverages in their (nearly) final form. This allows you to present your product with full confidence, knowing you’re giving investors and stakeholders a sensational preview of everything your brand has to offer.
Wildpack: Where Your Beverage Business Begins
Building a beverage business has many intertwined steps. You start out with a vision, driving you to craft a fresh and imaginative beverage that will shake up the market for years to come—but then what?
When it comes to getting your product made, packaged, and distributed, the startup process can be tough for emerging beverage brands, especially when you’re competing with massive companies.
At Wildpack, we pride ourselves on offering unparalleled quality and customer service for growing beverage brands. Plus, with plenty of packaging options and the ability to scale your run size as you grow, you get all the beverage packaging and production solutions you need for a successful start.
When you’re looking to take your beverage production to the next level, start by contacting Wildpack.
Sources:
BevNet. How do you build a stronger beverage business? Validate it! https://www.bevnet.com/sponsored/how-do-you-build-a-stronger-beverage-business-validate-it/
