Scaling Gummies for Market: Emergency Version

SITUATION

A large white-label gummy manufacturer in California had multiple gummy products they were attempting to scale to meet enormous growth in their market. Sales were booming—but something in their scaled-up process was causing the agar to break down and fail to gel.

Orders were on backlog. They were losing money every day and damaging their wholesale relationships. If they didn’t solve the problem soon, they would have to shutter.

PROBLEM

Their largest problem was that bigger batches were coming out too watery. In general, any time you’re scaling a boiled water-based recipe you need to reduce the amount of water. You can’t just scale linearly because when you’re cooking larger-volume batches, a smaller percentage of the total water evaporates.

To compensate for the excess water, they were boiling their mixture for multiple hours to hit the right brix target to proceed to the next step. But the extra boil time degraded the agar and the gummies failed to gel.

They also had a more nuanced problem with the other two factors that affect agar gelling: pH and temperature.

Their gummies contained a fruit puree that was very tart (acidic), which they were adding to the hot gummy mix. The higher temperature and lower pH also contributed to the agar degradation and failure to gel.

SOLUTION

Based upon his vast experience, Dr. Alan explained some fundamental food science and laid out a few suggested changes in their processes, including how to adjust water per volume at scale. He also included some ideas for balancing and measuring the pH so the agar would gel effectively and consistently.

They carefully followed the instructions and their next batch turned out exactly as promised. Which meant they could begin full-scale production right away and start catching up while working on damage control.

BENEFITS

Solving their scaling problem helped the company stop their market-share hemorrhage and let them restart their revenue stream, save the company, and keep pace with the growth of their many customers.

Even better, it meant more happy edibles consumers could experience the delight of delicious, consistent cannabis gummies.

For more information, contact Alan McClure at [email protected].