In this article, you’ll learn:
- The first steps in developing a custom RTD
- How to work with manufacturers on a custom RTD formulation
- What the route to market looks like for a bespoke RTD
Research on out-of-home (OOH) consumption points to a category under pressure. The ready-to-drink (RTD) segment is bucking that trend, driven largely by consumers’ demand for convenience, innovative drinks, and evolving lifestyles.
It’s a market that changes rapidly as businesses race to keep up with evolving consumer tastes. To survive it, one has to be agile, but pursuing that through in-house production can quickly become costly and time-consuming. Working with a private label partner can reduce much of that complexity.
How you develop and launch one, however, is a process that will play a huge role in your success. For guidance, I spoke to Dustin Khan, sales and marketing director at Cloud Picker, a Dublin-based speciality roaster and one of Ireland’s most recognised coffee brands. Read on for his insights.
What are the first steps in developing a custom RTD drink?
The first steps in developing a custom RTD are establishing quality assurance, vetting a trusted private-label partner, and blind cupping samples to choose flavours.
In food and beverage, quality assurance comes before everything else. “We know what good coffee tastes like,” Dustin says of their decision to put this baseline first. They already had the expertise to evaluate it themselves.
This builds trust, ensures consumer safety, and prevents costly legal and financial setbacks. It also explains why he warns those taking the private-label path to take their time vetting a partner.
“Don’t commit to a collaboration if you don’t like what’s in the cup, regardless of how polished the final product looks.” It took them three years of on and off blind cupping. They worked through up to ten bespoke custom RTD samples before finding the favourites and the right private-label partner to produce them.
Even when developing your custom RTD beverage in-house, product sampling is a necessary process and has to be deliberate. “I would say, always blind cup too, as how samples are delivered or if you know where each sample came from, this can also affect your decision making through bias!” Dustin advises.
Once you’ve settled on your preferred flavours, that’s when you introduce other key factors to help narrow down the final selection. “We went back to our café sales data and let that make the call,” Dustin explains. “There was a clear difference, and that’s what drove the final decision.”
Another mistake he warns businesses against is using café-served coffee as the benchmark for developing RTD products. Temperature and packaging can dramatically alter flavour.
“You need to test the liquid at serving temperature, through the packaging format, after time on shelf,” he advises. “That recalibration takes longer than people expect.”
Remember that consultation, recipe design, sampling rounds, and feedback are only the beginning. As Dustin puts it, “The liquid is only half the work.” The production phase involves more stages that you must address before any large-scale sales begin.
How do brands work with manufacturers to create a custom RTD formulation?
Brands work with manufacturers by choosing market-ready recipes or developing a custom RTD formula from scratch, then refining it through sample packs and feedback.
It’s possible to produce custom RTDs in-house, but the process demands a dedicated facility and skilled staff to run it. It also requires compliance with a list of regulations and a host of other tasks that are neither simple nor cheap.
Drawing on their experience, Dustin believes a private label manufacturer should handle this. “RTD’s at scale requires food safety engineering, filling line infrastructure, and compliance frameworks that a roastery isn’t built for and potentially shouldn’t try to be,” he explains.
With manufacturers such as Hardtank, the private label process comes with two paths. One is shop-to-go, where you pick market-ready recipes, decide the packaging and labelling, and then production follows.
The other option is to work with them in developing your custom RTD formula from scratch. “Our job was the coffee expertise and understanding the difference between a barista-made cold brew and a Nitro cold brew,” Dustin explains their role in this particular process.
During custom ready to drink recipe development, the manufacturer shares sample packs for feedback. Once the final recipe is approved, manufacturers move into pasteurisation, stabilisation, and shelf-life validation before finalising production specifications. They then determine final pricing from everything up to that point, including packaging design, before production and launch.
It’s an experience Dustin expected and was glad to have. “Their job was making sure 10,000 units matched what we’d approved at the trial stage,” he shares. He argues that taking on such tasks does little to ease the pressure, given how difficult the business environment for roasteries across Europe and beyond already is.
“To build in-house is a rather large investment, and for us, the large investments are needed elsewhere in the business for now,” he explains his decision to work with a private label partner. Looking ahead, his ambition is to build on that experience to the point of developing bespoke RTD recipes collaboratively from the outset.
This is so that “the production constraints and the quality ambitions are designed around each other and allow us to provide our Cloud Picker knowledge with production scale,” he adds.
What does the route to market look like for a custom RTD?
The route to market for a custom RTD drink covers recipe development, food safety and labelling compliance, securing a production slot, and mapping distribution.
Unless strategically deliberate, delays in product launch can do more damage than good. This is especially true for a highly competitive market like RTD, where tastes evolve fast, and innovation is constant.
Your route-to-market plan should therefore account for recipe development time, which, as Dustin points out, can take longer than expected, particularly when developing a custom RTD.
“From brief to the first production run, you’re realistically looking at four to six months,” he says, and that’s because there’s a lot involved. “Recipe iteration, food safety, labelling compliance, and then getting a production slot,” he mentions the stages.
For manufacturers like Hardtank, production usually comes after final recipe approval and takes four to six weeks. But that’s not always the case elsewhere. “Manufacturers book out far in advance,” Dustin warns. “That’s all assuming you’re happy with the taste profiles sourced.”
Some manufacturers will have higher MOQs, and this may introduce significant financial and operational risks. Usually, the numbers vary by format and partner, as Dustin points out, but you’re typically overcommitting capital on an unproven concept. “That’s a big bet on a product that hasn’t been in a fridge yet,” he adds.
Even great products can fail, above all when market research is poor or absent. There are countless examples of this already, and a bespoke RTD drink is no exception, distribution included.
Dustin says this is a factor most people underestimate. From past experience, he shares specific considerations for those operating in the custom RTD space.
“You need to map your routes to market direct, wholesale, grocery, etc – before you commit to a production run, because the packaging, format, and pricing all depend on how the product actually reaches the customer,” he shares.
Hardtank’s private label process simplifies the path to launching a bespoke RTD with faster production times and quick feedback for both custom and market-ready recipes. Our MOQs start at just two pallets per SKU (approximately 6,000 cans), which lowers the risks for businesses at every stage.
Custom RTD: Key takeaways
- Quality assurance comes first, and blind cupping with careful partner vetting protects against costly mistakes.
- A private label manufacturer handles the food safety, filling infrastructure, and compliance that roasteries rarely have in-house.
- A strong route-to-market plan should account for recipe development time, production slots, and distribution channels before you commit capital.
Looking to develop your own custom RTD? Explore Hardtank’s private label solutions for cold brew and RTD production, or contact the team to get started.
Custom RTD: FAQ
How long does it take to develop a custom RTD drink?
From brief to the first production run, expect four to six months. This covers recipe iteration, food safety, labelling compliance, and securing a production slot.
Should you produce a custom RTD in-house or use a private label manufacturer?
Producing in-house demands a dedicated facility, skilled staff, and compliance frameworks. Most roasteries find a private label manufacturer better suited to RTDs at scale.
Why is blind cupping important when developing a custom RTD?
Blind cupping removes bias from how samples reach you or where they came from. It helps you choose flavours on quality alone.
Want to learn more about custom RTD development?
- Explore private label RTD: Learn how to launch your own canned coffee.
- Discover your profits: With our ROI calculator.
- Speak to the team: Contact Hardtank here.
