How long does the process take?

Our standard timeline will get you from a concept or an idea through to a product in your warehouse inside 4 months. We have done it faster and in some cases, due to unforeseen delays a fair amount slower!

A lot of speed will come down to the selection of raw materials, what’s in stock and in the country (many non-standard/special raw materials are brought in from overseas in minimum quantities). These factors can blow out lead-times and in the event a raw material needs to be air-freighted, costs may blow out as well.

What should I expect to pay for my product?

If you’re looking for something for a dollar a unit, it’s going to be really hard or even impossible to deliver a listed medicine or even a high quality food product that is made in the first world/Western market. For super-competitive pricing like that (but not necessarily always highest quality), offshore manufacturing might be the way to go.

In Australia, allow for no less than $5-6 per unit for your Cost of Goods Sold including formulation, packaging, label and testing for a basic listed medicine product (or gummy etc). For a more premium formulation, allow anywhere between $8-12 per unit. Economic batch sizes with most manufacturers start at around 300,000 tablets, capsules, softgels or around 3000 – 5000 finished units. 

So, in terms of investment, you’re looking at anywhere between $18-60,000 per SKU in stock investment alone, without adding in the cost of salaries, branding, product development, labels etc…. A good rule of thumb is to allow about $100,000 per SKU for your first batch including everything.

What is TFO’s pricing structure?

We typically charge two rates which deliver you the services of a highly experienced, cross-functional team of experts to work alongside you and your team. For full-service end to end product and project delivery, it’s $9,995 plus GST. Where you have done a lot of the upfront thinking around formulation, target consumer, product economics and sometimes even formulation, it’s $7,995 plus GST.

We assume that projects will be delivered inside 3-4 months and split the fee into 50% up front and then three equal monthly amounts for the remainder. If projects continue past this timeline, we simply charge you the monthly amounts until the project is complete, or you decide it’s not a fit (it does happen occasionally).

We also offer a Claims Evidence service on the basis of number of ingredients, which again if you have your own formulation done (or you’re updating an existing product) can be a really cost-effective way to get your regulatory work completed.

Finally, we offer an hourly rate for ad-hoc project work as customers require it.