We Packed and Exported Our Own Freight to California
Watch the truck get loaded — or read the story below.
The Retail Journey — by Shawn Brown, Founder of Moon Magic
The short answer: We just watched a truck full of Moon Magic drive off to Southern California — our second freight heading to the US for our Phase 1 retail launch. What makes it worth writing about isn't the truck. It's that everything on it was made, packed, palletized, and exported by us. Most early-stage food brands outsource nearly all of that. We've now brought cross-border logistics in-house too, and this is what that actually looks like.
What was on the truck
Freight number two, bound for Southern California, in preparation for our Phase 1 retail launch. Every case on it was produced in our own factory, packed by our own team, palletized in our own space, and prepared for export by us.
Watching your own truck pull away hits differently when you know every stage of what's inside it was handled by the people standing there watching it go.
Why doing our own exporting is unusual
Most early-stage food brands rely on co-manufacturers and third parties for almost everything — R&D, production, storage, logistics, exporting. That's not a criticism; it makes complete sense. This stuff is genuinely complicated, and outsourcing is the standard playbook for a reason.
For a variety of reasons, we've done all of it ourselves from day one:
- R&D — in-house
- Scale-up — in-house
- Production — in-house, in our own factory
- Storage and palletizing — in-house
- Exporting and cross-border logistics — now also in-house
Was it the easier path? Definitely not. Some of it we learned the expensive way — our first attempt at outsourcing production cost us $200,000 before we built the factory ourselves.
What we've noticed about doing it ourselves
Here's the pattern we keep seeing: the more we do ourselves, the better we get. And the better we get, the more control we have over the things that matter most — quality, timelines, flexibility, and the standard our products go out at.
Exporting is the newest addition to that list. Cross-border freight is its own discipline, with its own paperwork, its own requirements, and its own ways to go wrong. Taking it on ourselves means another learning curve. It also means that when something needs to move, or change, or be fixed, we're not waiting on someone else's timeline to find out what happened.
The deep expertise we're building across every stage of this business is going to be some of Moon Magic's most valuable intellectual property over time.
What Phase 1 means for us
This freight is part of our Phase 1 retail launch into Southern California — the beginning of Moon Magic's move from a direct-to-consumer brand into retail shelves. We'll be documenting that journey as it happens, including the parts that don't go smoothly.
For now, it just means we get to watch our own truck drive away.
And that never gets old.
Frequently asked questions
Does Moon Magic handle its own manufacturing and logistics?
Yes. Moon Magic handles R&D, scale-up, production, storage, palletizing, and now exporting and cross-border logistics in-house, rather than relying on co-manufacturers and third-party providers.
Where is Moon Magic launching in retail?
Moon Magic's Phase 1 retail launch is into Southern California, supplied by freight shipments prepared and exported from its own facility.
Why does Moon Magic do everything in-house?
Control and capability. Handling each stage directly gives the team control over quality, timelines, flexibility, and product standards — and the expertise built along the way becomes long-term intellectual property for the business.
More from the Moon Log: A day in the life at our factory · How we built our own chocolate factory · Why our first chocolate nearly broke us
This article accompanies a behind-the-scenes video from the Moon Magic factory. Our channel documents the real, transparent work of building a young candy company — the factory, the R&D, the retail journey, and every honest challenge along the way.