Methodology & Ranking Criteria

Every ordering decision on Co-Packer Index is produced by a fixed formula using only published, objective facts. We do not rank on opinion, reviews, star ratings, or payment. Claiming or upgrading a listing never changes a manufacturer's position.

The three profile fields, defined

• Published MOQ — a minimum order quantity the manufacturer itself publishes on a public page (its own website or a public directory statement). We record the figure, the band it falls in (under 1,000 / 1,000–5,000 / 5,000–25,000 / over 25,000 units), and the source URL. Every MOQ is labelled unverified until the manufacturer confirms it with us directly — claiming a listing includes that confirmation. We never estimate or infer an MOQ.
• Certification stack — the manufacturer appears in the public listing of the issuing body shown (for example NSF's public GMP-registration listings), checked against that body's own directory on the date shown. A certification entry is a dated, objective statement of what the public listing showed — never an endorsement or a quality judgement by us.
• FDA status check — each month we check two public FDA datasets: the FDA Warning Letters database (official export) and dietary-supplement recalls in the FDA Enforcement Reports (openFDA). A record is shown on a profile only when the FDA-published company name matches the profile name by exact normalized-name comparison (case, punctuation, and legal suffixes such as LLC/Inc ignored — never fuzzy matching), and, for recalls, only when the state also agrees where both sides publish one. We show the date, the FDA-published company name, the subject or recall classification exactly as published, and a link to the government source. Only records from the last five years are shown. A flag is a dated, factual government record — it is not a statement about current operations, and it never affects ranking. Cosmetics recalls are not yet exposed by openFDA and are therefore not yet checked; this page will be updated when that changes.

How manufacturers are ordered

On every category, state, certification, and MOQ-band page, manufacturers are ordered by this sequence of objective criteria, each one breaking ties left by the one before:

1. Publishes a minimum order quantity — manufacturers that publish an MOQ rank above those that do not, and lower published MOQs rank first (this is a low-MOQ directory; the whole point is finding someone who will take a small run).
2. Number of verified certification listings (more first).
3. Alphabetical by company name (final tie-break).

FDA flags never affect order — they are informational display only. "Low-MOQ" on a page title refers strictly to the published-MOQ ordering above, and to nothing else.

Where the data comes from

Facts are compiled from public certification listings (for example NSF's public GMP listings), public trade directories, public government datasets (FDA Warning Letters database, openFDA Enforcement Reports), and manufacturers' own public websites — gathered politely (rate-limited, honoring each site's robots.txt, public pages only). We index facts — names, locations, certification-listing status, published MOQs, published founding years, government records — which are not copyrightable. We do not copy descriptions, photographs, or other creative content.

How often it refreshes

Certification listings and FDA datasets are re-checked monthly, and each profile carries the date of its most recent check. If a fact is wrong or out of date — including an FDA match you believe is a different company — any manufacturer can correct it for free on our correction page. Corrections are processed fast; wrong matches are removed, not argued with.