Why we manufacture with partner facilities

Color of Vietnam does not own a factory. We keep in-house the work that decides what the product is: recipes, standards, packaging and brands. Our partner facilities in the Thach That – Quoc Oai industrial park in Hanoi bring the production lines, the certificates and quality control on the line. This article explains why we chose that split, what it gives us, what it costs and how we manage the cost.

What choosing not to build a factory really means

It means spending a young company's money and time on the work only we can do: understanding the eater, landing the flavour they want and telling each brand's story. A rice cracker line or a nut bar press is a large investment that runs best on a steady stream of orders. At this stage we need flexibility more than we need assets. Four brands, twenty products and several formats, from bars to crackers to snack jars. No single line could make all of that anyway.

In the industry this is called OEM manufacturing, where a factory makes products to the brand owner's requirements, or co-packing. Many well-known food brands around the world started exactly this way.

What stays with us

Some work we hand to nobody, because it is the reason the brands exist:

• Recipe direction: ingredients, flavour direction, texture, portion weight. The facility prepares trials, we taste and decide.
• Product standards: the spec sheet, acceptable ranges for colour, crunch and moisture, allergen handling and labelling.
• Packaging: the design, every line of copy, and the choice of film and carton together with our packaging suppliers.
• Brand: the names, the voice and the way PLAY Nutrition, PLAY Protein Bar, Natural & Healthy and Let's PLAY show up on the shelf and online.
• Final responsibility: the product carries our brand, so a fault is our fault wherever it happened.

What the partner brings

In return, the partner facilities bring what a small team could not build quickly on its own:

• Lines for each format: baking rice crackers, pressing and cutting nut bars, cacao coating, frying or baking snacks, packing.
• Facility credentials: ISO 22000:2018 for the food safety management system, currently being renewed; Halal certification issued by HCA and recognised by JAKIM; US FDA food facility registration.
• Quality control by batch: incoming ingredient checks, in-process checks, microbiological testing, retained samples and traceability records.
• Operating experience: the facility knows where a trial batch differs from a production run, and tells us before we make the mistake.

We always state that the certificates belong to the manufacturing facility, together with their scope and validity. For ISO 22000:2018 we say it is being renewed, because that is the truth today.

The price of the model, and how we handle it

Every model has a price. We see three difficulties and have a working answer for each.

The first is line time. A facility has several customers, and a line is not always free when we need it. Our answer is to plan production early, keep sensible stocks of ingredients and packaging, and be explicit with the partner about which run matters most.

The second is the gap between the tasting table and the line. A recipe that is right in a trial batch can behave differently at full scale. Our answer is to be present at the facility for the first runs, approve samples taken from the production batch rather than only from the lab, and record every adjustment.

The third is dependence. We reduce it with documentation. We hold the master copies of recipes, specifications and standards, so if a product ever has to move to another line we have what we need to start again.

What a week with the partner looks like

Suppose this week brings a new cashew bar trial for Natural & Healthy. Early in the week our R&D specialist sends the brief: flavour direction, nut ratio, target thickness. Midweek the facility runs the trial and sends samples to the office. We taste, take notes and call the facility to discuss two points to change. By the end of the week both sides have agreed the next version and a date to run it again. Everything goes into the sample log with a version number.

That rhythm repeats until the sample meets the standard. Only then do shelf-life testing, packaging and the first production run follow.

If you are a buyer who wants to understand how we control quality with our partners, get in touch and we will share the records and arrange samples. If you would like to work somewhere a week runs from a brief to a sample on the table, have a look at our Careers page.