Hi everyone,
So, you know how we said that we’d have some Basically Food back in stock in November if we’re lucky, December if we’re not? Well, as luck would have it, we’re very not! :D That is, BUILD chocolate and hopefully BOOST chocolate should be available in December, BOOST vanilla in late December or, more likely, early January, and BURN chocolate… someday. Hopefully January. Probably February.
The following four batches will depend on when we find a better manufacturer, and how fast they are. Sorry, BALANCE fans. :( It’s my favorite too.
Plain flavors might be even longer – that will depend on cashflow and minimum order quantities for whichever manufacturers we find. But we do have some handy DIY recipes for you to make your own! :) Reach out if you want some.
…
So, here’s the scoop. Our latest manufacturer, after weeks of silence following our last update, finally let us know that they won’t be putting labels on our products, because they only do supplements. You know, with Supplement Facts? And ours is a food product. Basically Food. With Nutrition Facts. So, no deal. Outta luck.
I mean, it would have been nice if they’d told us that months ago, before we paid them a bunch of money. But okay, cool. :| So, we had to switch our products back to tubs (after we’d switched to bags earlier to avoid delays in ordering) because tubs can be filled with powder and then shipped, unlabeled, to another company that will stick labels on them. And we had to find a company that would label our tubs on short notice. Which also costs money. (And also Arrow had to redesign the labels for tubs all over again – sorry, Arrow.)
And, of course, you know how it is with ordering tubs – they’re always late. So, the tubs themselves arrived, a couple weeks ago, but the lids didn’t arrive till this week! So, in theory, BUILD and BOOST chocolate should be ready to start production as soon as they can get on the schedule. Which should happen pretty soon, we’re told. Great! :)
Of course, BOOST vanilla is not happening just yet, because there’s one more ingredient that’s not arriving till the middle of December: Magnesium Malate. :o Theoretically, that’s not an issue for BOOST chocolate and BUILD chocolate, because we already sent our leftover Magnesium Malate (along with a number of other ingredients from Super Body Fuel) to the manufacturer, which should be enough for those two batches.
But it’s possible that they might end up just a bit short of this crucial ingredient before finishing both batches, which would mean we’d have only one batch ready in December (probably BUILD chocolate) and the other would be ready sometime after the mid-December magnesium resupply. So, BOOST vanilla (and potentially, if unlucky, chocolate) in January. Or if we’re incredibly lucky (and this manufacturer likes to work through the holidays), late December. :p So yeah, January.
What about BURN chocolate?
Well, we got their corrected sample, which was fine. And then they gave us a new price quote, which was 50% higher than the quote they’d given us a year earlier. That’s a big bump! So they get to be a year late, and then charge us a bunch more money for the privilege! And they hadn’t started ordering ingredients yet, of course, because the large amount of money we’d paid them earlier was now not large enough, they’d decided. :x
So we decided to give yet another manufacturer a try. Their price quote is a little more reasonable. Plus they even label products with Nutrition Facts! :D Amazing. Since we’re definitely not working with the other manufacturer again, it seemed prudent to try out a new one with a single test order before pouring a bunch more money (and hopes and dreams) after it.
But, we’ll have to see how long things take with them. If it’s going to be a lot longer, we may have to fall back to our lovably obstinate current manufacturer just to keep things moving and get you your BURN! Regardless, neither of them have ordered anything, so it’s likely to be a couple months before all the necessary ingredients are in, meaning BURN chocolate won’t be ready till February, realistically. I really hope that’s not an overly optimistic estimate. :|
In the meantime, we’re ramping up our manufacturer search, focusing on food co-packers that do dry mix blending, rather than snooty supplement companies. The hope is to have a number of good options that are all communicative and want to work with us, and then choose the most promising to do our next four runs: BALANCE vanilla and chocolate, and BUILD and BURN vanilla.
Of course, not having any inventory these last few months means that our money supply has been going down, instead of up like it’s supposed to. ;p So, we should have enough money to finish the first four runs (and their labeling), and to start the next four. And then with those first four done, we should have some product in stock again, and the money should be flowing in again, so that by the time those next four are done, we should have enough money to finish them (50% upfront to start, 50% upon completion to finish). Yay, business! :D
But, we’re probably not going to have a ton of money left over to do plain batches or other flavors, right away, so unfortunately we don’t have a good time estimate for those. :/ If we can find a manufacturer willing to do some small batches to help us out, it shouldn’t take too much money. But we’ll see. Either way, plain is coming before cinnamon. I think we all need a break from cinnamon after the last year or two. :p
Again, we’ve got DIY recipes if you want to make your own, plain or otherwise! :) Email us!
Please take care. We’ll keep hanging in there if you do! <3
Thank you,
Alex Cho Snyder (axcho)
