The company and brand name “smaints” is composed of “small saints”, as the Aztecs already called mushrooms because of their health benefits. “We want to bring back this positive image of mushrooms and make the “little saints” big again!”, explain the two founders. Christian and Maximilian started their own business in 2017 with an internet trading agency to advise companies on online sales, parallel to their studies and part-time jobs. They supported their customers in selling on Amazon: Starting with logistics and ending with the sale to the end customer. Over time (2018 to 2020), the combination of this experience and their shared passion for healthy lifestyle led to the planning of their first own product: cocoa with mushroom ingredients. Flavourful product development of the power drink and balancing a powerful ingredient mix followed.
What then ended in the production of isolated successful samples now had to be transferred to a large production volume. At the same time, ensuring high-quality ingredients was not to be neglected. For the market launch, Christian Jung and Maximilian Endter chose contract manufacturing for their product.
“Especially at the beginning, we were able to benefit enormously from the principle – everything from one source. We only contributed some of the raw materials to the process. Our contract manufacturer took over the mixing and filling, as well as the procurement of the packaging materials,” Jung explains.
With increasing product demand, issues such as price transparency of the packaging, its delivery times and the communication and coordination channels with the manufacturer finally became relevant in the entrepreneurial planning. For reasons of aroma and moisture protection, the processed vital mushrooms require an airtight membrane can for packaging. However, the number of manufacturers of precisely these membrane cans is manageable. Neither detailed information on the costs of the packaging nor the question of price advantages for a larger purchase quantity of the packaging could be clearly clarified.“Finally, the networking and the first contact with Julian Baumann from PackPart took place via LinkedIn,” the founders continue. The threesome quickly exchanged information about the current challenges regarding the packaging materials, also by telephone. Together, they recorded the packaging requirements for the membrane cans and finally commissioned Julian with the research. As a kind of “middleman” with a network in the packaging industry, he was able to mediate between the interests and challenges of the young start-up and the performance ranges of the manufacturers.
After intensive discussions with suitable contract manufacturers, Smaints was able to decide on a cooperation with a manufacturer that particularly fulfilled the points of price transparency and direct coordination. However, the young entrepreneurs will still have to take longer delivery times into account. Due to the preparation of the manufacturers by PackPart, it is now possible to switch to alternative manufacturers at any time.
For the future, the founding duo has planned further packaging projects in cooperation with PackPart.