If you’re a brand owner with a great idea—or even a homemade recipe—you’re already ahead of the game. But transforming that idea into a shelf-ready product takes more than inspiration. It requires a structured, strategic Research and Development (R&D) process designed to ensure your product delivers on taste, quality, consistency, safety, and scalability.
At World Wide Gourmet Foods, we help brands like yours move from concept to commercialization with a clear and collaborative approach.
What R&D Really Means for Your Product
1. Discovery and Feasibility
Whether you bring us a flavor profile, a kitchen recipe, or just a whiteboard sketch, our team starts by understanding your goals. We’ll assess ingredients, labeling needs (like “gluten-free,” “high protein,” or “low sugar”), and determine whether the product is technically feasible.
2. Formulation from Scratch (or Refinement of Yours)
If you have a home recipe, we’ll scale and refine it for commercial production. If you only have a concept, we’ll build the formula from the ground up—selecting ingredients, optimizing nutrition, and developing texture, taste, and appearance to match your vision. If you have a formula you’re making in a commercial kitchen, we can work with you to scale it up and adapt it to large scale production equipment. This is where food science meets artistry.
3. Benchtop Prototypes and Testing
We’ll create small-batch benchtop samples so you can see, taste, and test what your future product will be. Most clients go through 2–3 rounds of revisions to dial in the flavor and texture.
4. Scale-Up and Production Planning
Once the formulation is locked, we’ll engineer the process to work on full-scale manufacturing lines. That means adjusting for larger batch sizes, setting up processing parameters, and coordinating the right packaging equipment for your format—whether flow-wrapped units and trays, stand-up pouches, pillow bags, or display caddies and boxes. We can match almost any packaging format in the marketplace.
5. Commercial Readiness
Before launch, we conduct trial production runs to validate the formula, confirm yields, and identify any process refinements. We also provide final nutritional panels, assist with labeling requirements, and ensure you have a clear understanding of costs at scale.
What Does R&D Typically Cost?
Many co-manufacturers or product development companies can charge between $20,000 and $50,000 for full product development, depending on how many iterations of the product are required.
At WWGF, our rates are competitive and transparent. We typically structure R&D around a combination of hourly estimates (billed at $150 per hour) based on your product complexity and fixed pricing for things like our Pilot Program ($1,750) and Cleaning Fees ($500). Most projects fall within a range of $4,000–$10,000, for development from concept to a validated production-ready product. Below is an example of how that development cost might play out:
- Benchtop formulation: Typically 10-40 hours, billed at $150 per hour per formulation, and includes prototypes, ingredient sourcing, and documentation. Can run from $1,500 to $6,000.
- Pilot plant trial: $1,750, plus $500 cleaning fee
We refer you to 3rd party labs for Nutrition Panel Analysis or Shelf-Life Testing, which means we are not marking up those expenses. Those costs are roughly $240 for the Nutrition Panel Analysis and a much more expensive fee of over $2,000 for Shelf-Life Testing. In a future article, we will discuss how to do shelf-life testing on your own for much, much cheaper.
Importantly, you retain ownership of the formula we develop for you—an essential point for any brand that values long-term control and scalability.
At WWGF, we believe that you should fully own the formulas we develop for your products. Once the R&D process is complete and the formulation is approved, all rights to the final recipe belong exclusively to you, the customer. This ensures complete control over the product’s identity, allowing for flexibility in future manufacturing, branding, and potential licensing opportunities. It also protects your investment in innovation and enables seamless transitions if production needs to be scaled, relocated, or diversified across multiple co-manufacturers. Formula ownership gives you the freedom to grow your brand with confidence and without dependency on any single supplier.
Why Work with World Wide Gourmet Foods?
- We don’t force-fit you into our existing products. Every formula is custom.
- We help you scale responsibly. Whether it’s a 10,000-unit launch or a 1M-unit rollout, we help you grow.
- We offer a wide range of production capabilities. From chocolate enrobing to granola bars to shelf-stable baked goods.
- We believe in partnership. You’re not just a client; we’re invested in helping you succeed. We win when you win!
- You own your formula. If we develop a product for you, it is your product, not something we’re licensing for your use.
Ready to bring your idea to life?
Start your journey with us by visiting our Product Development Program or contacting our team directly. Let’s turn your concept into a product your customers will crave.
World Wide Gourmet Foods 