Glossary

Co-packing terms, defined.

The vocabulary of bottling and food manufacturing, in plain English — what each term means and where it matters.

Acidified Food: A low-acid food with acid or acid ingredients added to bring its finished pH to 4.6 or below. Most shelf-stable sauces and condiments fall in this category, and they require a documented scheduled process before production.
Broadliner: A large foodservice distributor that carries a full range of products to restaurants and institutions — for example Sysco, US Foods, Gordon Food Service or Performance Foodservice.
Cap Tightness Check: A verification that each closure was applied at the correct torque. Frogmore runs cap tightness checks as part of batch QC on hot-filled product.
Certificate of Analysis (COA): A document recording the measured data points for a production batch, such as pH, Brix and other specifications. At Frogmore, approved COA data points become the template every future run is measured against.
Clean-In-Place (CIP): An automated cycle that circulates cleaning solution, sanitizer and hot water through tanks, pipes, valves and fill heads without taking equipment apart. CIP removes soil and biofilm.
Co-Packer: A contract manufacturer that produces and packages food or beverage products for another company’s brand, using that brand’s recipe or one from the co-packer’s portfolio.
Cold Fill: Filling product into containers at ambient or refrigerated temperature with no heat step in the bottle. Stability relies on formulation — pH, water activity and preservatives — and a sanitary filling environment.
Form-Fill-Seal: A packaging process that forms a pouch from roll film, fills it and seals it in one continuous pass. Frogmore uses form fill for bulk frozen products such as pre-cooked grits and pancake batter.
GFSI: The Global Food Safety Initiative, which benchmarks food safety certification programs. A GFSI-recognized certification such as SQF is what most major retailers and distributors require.
Hot Fill: Heating product to roughly 185–210°F, filling and capping it hot, inverting the container to sanitize the closure, then cooling it. Properly acidified hot-filled sauces commonly hold 12–24 months of ambient shelf life.
Inversion: Turning a freshly hot-filled, capped container upside down so hot product sterilizes the inside of the cap and neck — the surfaces the fill itself never touches.
Kosher Certification: Certification by a kosher agency that ingredients, equipment and processes meet kosher requirements. Frogmore’s facility is Kosher certified.
Label Compliance Letter: A letter from an FDA-certified labeling agency confirming a product label meets federal labeling requirements. Frogmore requires one before a label goes on production.
Lot Traceability: Recording ingredient lot numbers, batch numbers and production records so any finished product can be traced back to its inputs — and a problem can be contained to specific pallets instead of every SKU shipped.
Minimum Run: The smallest production volume a co-packer will schedule. Frogmore’s minimum is 400 gallons for a first production run and 800 gallons for subsequent runs.
PC (Portion Control) Cup: An individual, heat-sealed cup filled to a fixed volume so foodservice staff can serve a consistent portion without measuring.
Private Label: A product made by a manufacturer and sold under another company’s brand. Frogmore offers a portfolio of proven recipes that brands can launch under their own label.
Process Letter: A document from a recognized process authority that establishes the scheduled process for an acidified food. It is required before an acidified product can be hot filled for sale.
SQF: Safe Quality Food, a GFSI-recognized food safety and quality certification. SQF certification verifies a documented food safety program is in place and followed, confirmed by outside audit.
Sterilize-In-Place (SIP): A step that follows Clean-In-Place, using steam or a chemical sterilant at validated temperature and contact time to kill microorganisms remaining on clean equipment surfaces.
Test Kitchen Session: A working session in which the client and Frogmore’s culinary team prepare the product together at bench scale and the client approves the result before a production run is scheduled.
Vacuum Seal Verification: A check that a hot-filled container pulled and held its vacuum seal as it cooled. A container that fails has no valid shelf life claim.
Water Activity: A measure of the free water in a product available to support microbial growth. Along with pH, it is one of the main formulation controls that determine shelf stability.