By Laci Jones, FAPC Communications Services Student

(Stillwater, Okla. – Feb. 18, 2015) Your friends tell you your salsa is the best they ever tasted. Your mother has been serving her “world’s best” homemade jelly for years. Your grandmother’s pasta sauce is the hit of every family gathering. You think about selling your food product, but you don’t know where to begin.

Oklahoma State University’s Robert M. Kerr Food & Agricultural Products Center, a part of the Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, has food scientists that specialize in helping entrepreneurs commercialize homemade recipes.

Scaling Up Food Recipes

Erin Johnson, FAPC business and marketing client coordinator, said clients often contact the center with a recipe created in their home kitchen.

“The clients’ goal is to produce their product on a mass scale, but some clients do not know the steps to produce a product for market,” she said.

The recipe scale-up process is a component of FAPC’s Client Success Path, which is a five-step program for entrepreneurs to take a product to market.

“Depending on the product, scale up can be completed in about six hours in one visit to the center,” Johnson said. “FAPC completes approximately 10 recipe scale-ups per year for a variety of different food products, the most popular being jams, jellies, sauces, salsas and condiments.”

Darren Scott, FAPC food scientist and sensory specialist, said there are three steps in scaling up product recipes, but it must start with a satisfactory product.

“Once a satisfactory product is obtained, the plan is to scale-up the recipe for mass production, packaging, distribution and sales,” Scott said.

Step 1

The first step is converting units used at home to units typically used in the industry. Scott said it is easier to work with industry units when measuring large amounts of ingredients.

FAPC takes the dashes, pinches, cups and other standardized units used by the client and converts them to pounds, grams or gallons. The ingredients also are converted to percentages for the distribution process.

“The reason why using percentages is important is because you cannot measure 98 tablespoons for a larger batch,” Johnson said. “You will eventually lose count of the number of tablespoons needed.”

Once FAPC gives the clients the percentages of ingredients within their product, the client will typically take the percentages to a contract packager, or co-packer, to scale up their recipe for distribution. FAPC recommends clients conduct research before picking a co-packer.

“Co-packers can be selected by reviewing their cost of services, production records and experiences with similar products,” Scott said. “FAPC provides the client a list of question that can be used to interview co-packers.”

Scaling up a recipe is not only about the ingredient percentages, but it also is about the business side of production.

“Many producers come to FAPC for assistance and do not realize their production costs,” Johnson said. “Initially, they will often purchase home-style ingredients for their product at retail cost, then switch their ingredients for a cheaper alternative to lower production costs.”

In some cases, there are ingredients available with specific functionality that may be used to replace their home-style ingredients in scaled-up batches. An example of a cheaper alternative is replacing a thickening agent purchased at the store for a commercial batch starch.

Step 2

The next step in the scale-up process is observing the batch and noting any changes that may have occurred in comparison to the original recipe.

“Obviously, this is done because the original recipe is the target,” Scott said. “Sometimes it is possible to predict what changes may occur in a scaled-up recipe, but often that is not the case.”

When scaling-up a recipe, the ingredients sometimes react differently when produced on a larger scale.

“Scaled-up batches of a product may be very different from the original formula because of differences in taste, texture, aroma or appearance,” Scott said. Foods are a complex system of interacting physical and chemical properties. When the product is scaled up, the function of these properties changes.”

The scaled-up products often receive a higher degree of scrutiny compared to home-style products, Scott said. The scaled-up batch makes observing “flaws” easier, which may have already existed in the small batch.

“It should be noted that many times the scaled-up batches are often no better or worse than the original,” Scott said. “They are just different.”

However, some ingredients are more difficult to scale up than others. An example is mixing spices with lighter-colored ingredients in large quantities. The colors may run or bleed together.

Fruits and vegetables may be difficult, as well. Scott said it is important to consider whether the fruit and vegetable commodities need to be peeled, cored or seeded when scaling-up the recipe.

“The client will sometimes change the ingredients so the product will work well on a larger scale,” Johnson said. “It is a trial and error experience. In some cases, it might not be possible to make the scaled-up batch identical to the original small batch.”

Step 3

The final step in scaling-up a recipe is making adjustments to the scaled-up recipe.

“The ultimate goal is making the subsequent batches of the recipe closely match the original recipe,” Scott said. “This may involve changes in the ingredients, changes in the equipment used to make the recipe or both.”

The Final Formulation

FAPC is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs succeed in producing their product.

In addition to product scale-up, FAPC offers a variety of resources and workshops to assist food entrepreneurs in creating a product.

Basic Training class, for example, helps food entrepreneurs address issues through business planning assistance and strategies, market identification and food-processing regulations.

“The food product scale-up is an exciting and challenging process that requires an organized, flexible and consistent approach for success,” Scott said. “Success is often achieved when a recipe and process for commercial production is accomplished and is ultimately measured in terms of the food product’s profitability and customer satisfaction.”

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Oklahoma State University is a modern land-grant system of interdisciplinary programs that prepares students for success. OSU is America’s Brightest Orange. Through leadership and service, OSU is preparing students for a bright future and building a brighter world for all. As Oklahoma’s only university with a statewide presence, OSU improves the lives of people in Oklahoma, the nation and the world through integrated, high-quality teaching, research and outreach. OSU has more than 36,000 students across its five-campus system and more than 24,000 on its combined Stillwater and Tulsa campuses, with students from all 50 states and around 120 nations. Established in 1890, OSU has graduated more than 245,000 students to serve Oklahoma, the nation and the world.