Runs Start at 500 lb. Tell Us What You’re Making.

Beef, chicken, turkey, pork, and lamb, in both muscle cuts and organs.

Beef. Muscle cuts ground, diced, or powdered, plus organs including liver, heart, and kidney for nutrient-dense supplements.
Chicken. Breast and trim, ground, diced, shredded, or powdered, plus heart and liver for pet food and supplement applications.
Turkey. Breast and dark meat, in the same formats, plus heart and liver.
Pork. Ground, sausage, Canadian bacon, and diced ham, with savory spice options, plus organs for specialized formulations.
Lamb. Run periodically, in muscle cuts and organ material.

Bovine organ powder is the largest thing we run. If we can source it, we can freeze-dry it.

Real lyophilization. Material is frozen, then the ice is drawn off under vacuum by sublimation, so the structure, color, flavor, and nutrition of the food stay intact instead of collapsing the way they do under heated air. It also finishes at a much lower water activity, which is what gives freeze-dried material its very long shelf life without refrigeration. Dehydration is a different process with a different result, and we do not blur the two.

It depends on the yield of your material, and yield is where most customers get surprised. Freeze-drying removes water, so a raw pound is never a finished pound, and the ratio is different for liver than it is for a diced muscle cut. Send us the material and the volume and we will quote against the finished pound, which is the number your retail math needs. You can expect competitive pricing and a reliable lead time on it.

Some products are in stock and can ship quickly. For a custom run we typically see four to six weeks, though it depends on the material, the volume, and what is already on the schedule. Contact your Flatiron Food Factory representative for specifics on your project rather than planning a launch window around a general figure.

Two things do most of that work. Everything happens in one facility, so material is not handed between a dryer, a miller, and a packer with a different process at each stop. And milling is run in house by a milling scientist against your density and mesh spec rather than to whatever a third-party mill produces that week. The facility keeps batch records, Certificates of Analysis (COAs), and traceability systems that support recalls, audits, and export documentation.

More than most buyers expect. The highlights are Certificates of Analysis (COAs) confirming the main pathogens test negative, aerobic plate count (APC) and total coliform count, mesh size and density on powder orders, batch records, and export documentation where a program needs it. Tell us what your auditor, your retailer, or your certifier asks for and we will confirm what we can produce before you commit to a run.

Yes. We can accommodate allergen-free and allergen-sensitive programs, including gluten and the top nine allergens: milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans, and sesame. Allergen-free runs are scheduled as such, and the line is sanitized between an allergen-containing run and an allergen-free one. Tell us what your formulation has to avoid and we will tell you exactly what we can guarantee for your run.

Packaging happens here, from bulk industrial through retail-ready, with sealing, lot coding, and custom labeling. We also do co-packing in house for some customers. Where a job runs past what we do here, or needs encapsulation or pouching, we either connect you with a trusted partner or manage that step with them on your behalf. Either way you have one place to start the conversation rather than a list of vendors to go assemble.

Yes, and it is worth being precise about where it starts. We do not do recipe development: if you want a freeze-dried meal, the meal needs to be formulated first, and we can point you to people who do that well. Our R&D begins at the freeze-drying stage. Bring us the made product and we will run it several ways to work out the drying method that gives you the finished result you want, one that rehydrates in the time and the manner your product needs. R&D runs are a charged service, and they are a good deal cheaper than discovering the problem in a production run.