When Factory invests, our team joins with your team. The Factory building has everything and everyone an emerging food, beverage, or pet brand needs, all under one roof. We’ll provide you with staff, resources, relationships, and data that can be cost-prohibitive for a startup.
A full-service scale-up facility built just for you.
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
Every entrepreneur has a vision for expanding their initial product line. Our sourcing and product development team can help expand a brand into a platform for faster growth. We work with you on everything from ideation and concept development to commercialization, including formulation, sourcing ingredients, finding a co-manufacturer, negotiating contracts, conducting line trials, compliance, and manufacturing.
MARKET RESEARCH & CONSUMER INSIGHTS
Memorable brand campaigns and effective marketing strategy are built on market research and consumer insights. We have a focus-group facility on-site, conduct online surveys and taste tests, and field large-scale brand and market studies in partnership with a topflight researcher. Additionally, we make heavy use of our partnership with SPINS for retail data and tap into a variety of other research sources.
GRAPHIC & WEB DESIGN
Our design team brings brands to life through ads, webpages, social posts, displays, shippers, custom press and influencer kits, mailers, sales presentations, and more. Our designers also refine and update packaging, refresh web design, and develop visual brand guidelines as needed.
SHOPPER MARKETING
Engaging consumers at shelf, both in retailers and online, takes both art and science. We help make the most of retailer relationships by managing store activations, couponing, and retailer advertising, in addition to reporting.
DIGITAL & SOCIAL MARKETING
Emerging brands rely on digital and social media to reach consumers. We help set strategies, produce content, and manage day-to-day workflow. We also manage influencer engagement, email marketing, and SMS, and help craft a consistent brand voice with copywriting and content. Additionally, we work with brands to set KPIs and measure the success of campaigns.
RETAIL SALES
Getting a retailer’s attention is often about who you know. Through our team’s cumulative decades of sales experience, we’ve cultivated invaluable relationships with industry players, from retail CEOs to buyers and brokers. By bundling our brands’ business with select brokers and resources, we help secure favorable pricing and outsized attention. Our relationship with SPINS also gets you access to valuable retailer and competitor data.
FINANCIAL SERVICES
Our finance team takes a comprehensive look at all our brands’ finances, including budgeting, planning, and reporting. The team also handles the annoying (but necessary) accounting tasks like month-end reconciliations, AP/AR, tax reporting, and cash flow.
BUSINESS SUPPORT
HR, IT, and consumer relations (following up quickly with every consumer who contacts a Factory brand) are three necessary services that very few emerging brands can afford. Our behind-the-scenes experts help keep our brand partners’ work-flow humming.
PACKAGING ENGINEERING
Packaging can make or break a product. Our packaging engineer works closely with marketing and package design to develop packaging that meets manufacturing requirements, retailer specifications, and consumer expectations. Additionally, our engineer travels to be on-site for line trials and networks with vendors to find the right materials and negotiate the best pricing.
PHOTO & VIDEO CONTENT
Product photography and video production eat up a huge portion of most marketing budgets—so we added in-house photographers and videographers to our team and built an on-site sound studio for audio recording. The money you save on content production allows you to increase your media spend and get more eyes on your ads.
OFFICIAL GREETER
Meet Pot Roast! She’s Rich Thompson’s chocolate Labrador and our unofficial mascot – we call her Potsy for short. She specializes in greeting visitors, playing fetch, and sneaking treats when no one’s looking.
QUALITY ASSURANCE, FOOD SAFETY & CO-PACKING
Our QA team helps make sure your product is always the exceptional quality consumers expect. The team focuses on regulatory compliance and best practices, conducts in-house shelf-life studies, and observes production runs. As needed, we assist in co-man contract negotiations and monitor co-packers for efficiency.
ALLEN FLAVORS LAB
A flavor scientist from Allen Flavors, an industry-leading flavor development and manufacturing company, works in a laboratory at the Factory facility to complement our in-house product development team.
ECOMMERCE
Today’s consumers expect to be able to have your products delivered right to their doors. We can develop and execute comprehensive online selling strategies that encompass DTC, Amazon, and other third-party online retailers like Walmart, Target, and Thrive. We’ve got relationships with platforms and brokers, and we’ll dive into the reporting, setting KPIs and monitoring success rates.
SUPPLY CHAIN & LOGISTICS
There are a lot of moving pieces to keep track of when it comes to supply chain and logistics—purchasing and procurement, forecasting and fulfillment, warehousing and distribution. Our team is focused on execution and efficiency, leveraging relationships to give emerging companies the benefit of decades of networking. We are continually evaluating COGS and margins and looking for opportunities to consolidate our brands’ purchasing power.
WAREHOUSE STORAGE
Need somewhere to keep a few pallets of product for sending out samples to retailers and press? Our 10,000 square-foot warehouse has plenty of room, and we have the equipment needed to load and unload trailers.
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
Every entrepreneur has a vision for expanding their initial product line. Our sourcing and product development team can help expand a brand into a platform for faster growth. We work with you on everything from ideation and concept development to commercialization, including formulation, sourcing ingredients, finding a co-manufacturer, negotiating contracts, conducting line trials, compliance, and manufacturing.
MARKET RESEARCH & CONSUMER INSIGHTS
Memorable brand campaigns and effective marketing strategy are built on market research and consumer insights. We have a focus-group facility on-site, conduct online surveys and taste tests, and field large-scale brand and market studies in partnership with a topflight researcher. Additionally, we make heavy use of our partnership with SPINS for retail data and tap into a variety of other research sources.
GRAPHIC & WEB DESIGN
Our design team brings brands to life through ads, webpages, social posts, displays, shippers, custom press and influencer kits, mailers, sales presentations, and more. Our designers also refine and update packaging, refresh web design, and develop visual brand guidelines as needed.
SHOPPER MARKETING
Engaging consumers at shelf, both in retailers and online, takes both art and science. We help make the most of retailer relationships by managing store activations, couponing, and retailer advertising, in addition to reporting.
DIGITAL & SOCIAL MARKETING
Emerging brands rely on digital and social media to reach consumers. We help set strategies, produce content, and manage day-to-day workflow. We also manage influencer engagement, email marketing, and SMS, and help craft a consistent brand voice with copywriting and content. Additionally, we work with brands to set KPIs and measure the success of campaigns.
RETAIL SALES
Getting a retailer’s attention is often about who you know. Through our team’s cumulative decades of sales experience, we’ve cultivated invaluable relationships with industry players, from retail CEOs to buyers and brokers. By bundling our brands’ business with select brokers and resources, we help secure favorable pricing and outsized attention. Our relationship with SPINS also gets you access to valuable retailer and competitor data.
FINANCIAL SERVICES
Our finance team takes a comprehensive look at all our brands’ finances, including budgeting, planning, and reporting. The team also handles the annoying (but necessary) accounting tasks like month-end reconciliations, AP/AR, tax reporting, and cash flow.
BUSINESS SUPPORT
HR, IT, and consumer relations (following up quickly with every consumer who contacts a Factory brand) are three necessary services that very few emerging brands can afford. Our behind-the-scenes experts help keep our brand partners’ work-flow humming.
PACKAGING ENGINEERING
Packaging can make or break a product. Our packaging engineer works closely with marketing and package design to develop packaging that meets manufacturing requirements, retailer specifications, and consumer expectations. Additionally, our engineer travels to be on-site for line trials and networks with vendors to find the right materials and negotiate the best pricing.
PHOTO & VIDEO CONTENT
Product photography and video production eat up a huge portion of most marketing budgets—so we added in-house photographers and videographers to our team and built an on-site sound studio for audio recording. The money you save on content production allows you to increase your media spend and get more eyes on your ads.
OFFICIAL GREETER
Meet Pot Roast! She’s Rich Thompson’s chocolate Labrador and our unofficial mascot – we call her Potsy for short. She specializes in greeting visitors, playing fetch, and sneaking treats when no one’s looking.
QUALITY ASSURANCE, FOOD SAFETY & CO-PACKING
Our QA team helps make sure your product is always the exceptional quality consumers expect. The team focuses on regulatory compliance and best practices, conducts in-house shelf-life studies, and observes production runs. As needed, we assist in co-man contract negotiations and monitor co-packers for efficiency.
ALLEN FLAVORS LAB
A flavor scientist from Allen Flavors, an industry-leading flavor development and manufacturing company, works in a laboratory at the Factory facility to complement our in-house product development team.
ECOMMERCE
Today’s consumers expect to be able to have your products delivered right to their doors. We can develop and execute comprehensive online selling strategies that encompass DTC, Amazon, and other third-party online retailers like Walmart, Target, and Thrive. We’ve got relationships with platforms and brokers, and we’ll dive into the reporting, setting KPIs and monitoring success rates.
SUPPLY CHAIN & LOGISTICS
There are a lot of moving pieces to keep track of when it comes to supply chain and logistics—purchasing and procurement, forecasting and fulfillment, warehousing and distribution. Our team is focused on execution and efficiency, leveraging relationships to give emerging companies the benefit of decades of networking. We are continually evaluating COGS and margins and looking for opportunities to consolidate our brands’ purchasing power.
WAREHOUSE STORAGE
Need somewhere to keep a few pallets of product for sending out samples to retailers and press? Our 10,000 square-foot warehouse has plenty of room, and we have the equipment needed to load and unload trailers.
