Every directory counts facilities. This page counts what they will tell you before you call. Of the 237 US beverage co-packers we track, 36 publish a minimum order quantity — and only 17 publish one you could act on without asking a single question first.
Not one of these steps is a judgement about the facility. Each one is a count of what is written on its own website. The drop happens twice: most publish nothing, and most of those who publish something do not say what it is per.
| Step | Facilities | Share | What drops out |
|---|---|---|---|
| Facilities tracked | 237 | — | the whole database, 46 states |
| Publish a minimum at all | 36 | 15% | 201 publish no figure anywhere |
| … tied to one run or one order | 17 | 7% | 19 publish a figure counted per SKU, per brand, per year, or not stated at all |
A further 9 facilities gave us a minimum directly, by email, phone or our form. Those are recorded as declared, not published, and they are not counted above — this page measures what a brand can find on its own.
The middle column is the honest one. It counts only facilities whose site we read in full, so it measures their disclosure rather than our reading.
| What a brand needs | Published, all 237 | Published, of the 186 read in full | Does not publish |
|---|---|---|---|
| A minimum order quantitythe first question every brand asks | 36 of 23715% | 35 of 18619% | 81% of the sites we read |
| A production lead timewhen your pallets actually exist | 9 of 2374% | 7 of 1864% | 96% of the sites we read |
| Any certificationSQF, organic, kosher, HACCP… | 77 of 23732% | 61 of 18633% | 67% of the sites we read |
| A contact emaila way in that is not a form | 139 of 23759% | 112 of 18660% | 40% of the sites we read |
The 36 facilities that publish a figure use 5 different units. The largest single group is 11 facilities. Any average across them would require converting barrels into cases or gallons into bottles — arithmetic that depends on a fill volume and a case count the facility did not publish either.
| Unit published | Facilities | Comparable with |
|---|---|---|
| Gallons | 11 | other gallon figures only |
| Cases | 10 | other case figures only |
| Barrels (bbl) | 9 | other barrel figures only |
| Units (bottles or cans) | 4 | other unit figures only |
| Pallets | 2 | other pallet figures only |
This is why every directory quotes a range instead of a number, and why we publish the figures one by one with their unit and their source rather than a median. A median of 36 observations in 5 units is a made-up number.
A minimum only answers a founder’s question if you know what it is counted against. Among the 36 published figures, 17 are counted against one run or one order. The rest are per SKU, per brand, per year, or say nothing at all.
| The figure is per… | Facilities | What it means for a first run |
|---|---|---|
| run | 14 | usable as a first-run floor — this is the number a founder is looking for |
| order | 3 | also usable as a first-run floor — the facility simply words it as an order |
| SKU | 7 | multiply by the number of flavours you want to launch |
| brand | 2 | applies across your whole range, not to one product |
| year | 2 | an annual commitment — says nothing about one batch |
| — not stated | 8 | the figure is published, the period is not: you still have to ask |
Two numbers, because one of them flatters us. Across all 237 facilities we track, 36 publish a minimum. But a facility whose website we have never read line by line cannot have given us one — that figure measures our own reading as much as their disclosure.
So the headline uses the smaller, harsher denominator: the 186 facilities whose own site we read in full. 35 of those publish a minimum, 151 do not. That is 81% — a lower opacity rate than the whole-database figure of 85%, and the one we will defend.
One caveat we would rather state than have found: the "read in full" count is a floor. Some entries were checked at source before we started marking them, so the true publication rate sits between the two columns above, not at either end.
Nothing here is converted. Barrels are not turned into cases, gallons are not turned into units. A conversion is a number we made up, and we publish only numbers the facility itself stated. Where a field is empty it says so.
Every number on this page is computed from the database at build time, not typed in. If you quote one, quote the date with it: 22 October 2026, 237 facilities across 46 states.
Corrections are welcome and get published. If you run one of these facilities and we have you wrong, write to us — the entry is free, and it stays free.
If a facility has not published its minimum, the only way to know is to ask. Tell us the product and the run size, and we pass it to the facilities that fit. Sending it is free.