This is the first case study we published and the client has been with us since the KL Productions opened. We are holding the brand name pending final sign-off on using their logo publicly. The numbers below are real. The client is real. The brand name is the only thing anonymized.
The problem
A Southern Oregon food-brand founder had a product ready for retail and three no-thank-you emails from regional co-packers. The repeated objection: her first PO was 500 cases, and nobody wanted to run a job that small for a first-time brand with no track record.
She had options that did not work:
- Run it herself in a shared kitchen with hand-labeling. Would have hit the ship date but not survived the second PO.
- Pay the bigger regional co-packer their 5,000-case minimum. Would have tied up her entire seed check in inventory she had nowhere to sell.
- Push the PO back six months to build volume. Would have meant losing the buyer relationship entirely.
What KL did
The first run was 500 cases. We quoted it at our published rate card, same as we would quote 50,000. Scope document written before the run. No volume-minimum surcharge. No “take-it-or-leave-it” pricing.
Month 1-2: Launch run at 500 cases. First retailer PO filled, on-spec, on-time. Founder got paid, retailer reordered at month two.
Month 3-6: Retailer expansion. Second and third regional retailers signed. Monthly run grew to 1,200, then 2,800, then 4,400 cases. Rate card stayed the same. We added a second shift for her on run weeks.
Month 7-10: Scale to 8,000+ cases. Founder added a fourth retail chain. Monthly run averaged 8,500 cases. We allocated a full dedicated production line on run days to keep turnaround predictable.
Month 11-14: Current state at 12,000 cases per month. Four regional retailers, steady reorder cadence, private-label conversations for a fifth. Rate card drops from the 500-case rate to the 10K+ tier automatically at month 11.
The handoff moments that mattered
Three specific operational moments held the relationship together through scale-up.
Month 2: the spec walk. Before the second PO ran, founder came to the facility, walked the line with Trevor, and signed off on the pack-out. Took 90 minutes. Caught two small spec tweaks that would have surfaced as retailer complaints if they had run. Every subsequent run used the signed spec as the reference.
Month 6: the QA photo log. When volume hit 5,000 cases per run, we started sending founder a photo log of every completed pallet. Timestamped, shot from two angles. She used them in two retail audit responses and passed both.
Month 9: the Q4 capacity lock. October hit. Founder had a potentially-large Q4 PO from a fourth retailer but was uncertain on timing. We reserved three days of production line time and three pallet positions for her Q4 volume at no penalty if the PO shrank. The PO came in at the full size. We ran it.
The numbers
| Metric | Month 1 | Month 14 |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly cases | 500 | 12,000 |
| Retailers | 1 | 4 |
| Run size | 500 | 3,000 per run × 4 runs |
| Volume tier (our rate) | Base | 10K+ tier |
| Per-unit cost to founder | Base rate | ~28% lower than Month 1 |
What it looks like when you stay
Year 2 for this client started last quarter. Current conversations include:
- Fifth retailer (private label line)
- Secondary product SKU co-pack trial
- DTC fulfillment add-on (pick-pack + subscription option)
The relationship has grown 24x in volume and the founder still calls Trevor directly when a scope question comes up. Same phone line as month one.
What you should take from this
The thing that made this relationship survive to month 14 was not pricing. Every regional co-packer who said no to 500 cases would have said yes at 5,000. The thing that mattered was the math of who answers the phone when a scope question comes up on a Sunday night, and whether the 500-case run gets the same care as the 12,000-case run.
If you are a CPG founder with a first PO under 5,000 cases and you are getting the no-thank-you treatment, we will take the run. We will sign your scope in writing. We will grow the rate card tier with you automatically as volume scales. And we will pick up the phone when the question comes up.
Request a co-pack quote and mention your first-PO size. Written response in one business day. If you want to read how the math works on the tax-advantaged Oregon side, the Oregon Tax Savings Calculator is the place to start.