How Do I Create an Approved-Supplier List for Wax, Fragrance, Wicks and Jars so Purchasing Does Not Accidentally Change My Candle Formulation?

What an approved-supplier list is — and is not

Most small candle businesses have a list of suppliers somewhere: a WhatsApp chat, a spreadsheet of contacts, a folder of invoices. That is not an approved-supplier list, and it does not stop purchasing from changing your formula. What does is a list where each line is a supplier + exact product + approved pack sizes + the SKUs it is approved for + its status + the evidence. Purchasing reads the status and buys accordingly. Production owns the list and changes a status only after a test or an event. When a delivery arrives, goods-in checks it against the line — not against the purchase order.

Three words in that description do most of the work. Exact product: "soy wax" or "lavender oil" is a category, not a line; the line names the product exactly as the supplier lists it. For exact SKUs: a wax approved in your Lavender jar is not approved in your Oud tin until it has been tested there. Evidence: every approved line points to the test that approved it. The procurement post explains why each of those is needed; this page is the template.

The template, with example lines

Copy the columns below into a spreadsheet. The example lines use CSI products because those are the ones we can link to; they are illustrations of how a line is filled in, not recommendations or test results. Your list will have your suppliers, your products and your SKUs. Dates and references are left for you to fill.

Notice what the examples show. W-01 and W-02 are two waxes from the same supplier with different scopes: Chunks approved for every jar SKU, CSI 464 approved only as a backup for the one SKU it was tested in. K-02 is on the list as Trial so that purchasing can see it exists and must not buy it for production. J-02 is Not approved: listing an untested item explicitly stops it being bought "because it was cheaper". And every approved line has a retained sample or reserve — the control for any future comparison, since CSI, like most suppliers to small businesses, publishes no lot numbers, lot-to-lot consistency data or change notices.

What must match for a delivery to count

A line is only useful if goods-in can check a delivery against it in a couple of minutes. The table sets out, per category, what the line must record and what goods-in checks. Several of these are your own measurements, because the supplier does not publish them — CSI does not publish wick construction details or jar internal diameters, glass or base thickness, heights or fill weights (apart from the Golden Aluminium Tin at 85 g and the Heart Cutout Velvet Jar at 50 g).

Status codes and what purchasing may do

The statuses map directly onto the green, amber and red rules in the procurement post: Approved is green, Approved-backup is amber, and everything else is red. Suspended is the one that protects you after a problem: if a customer complaint or a failed first-pour check points at a material, suspend the line until you have looked, rather than deleting it. A suspended line comes back only through a new trial. Retired lines are never deleted either — a batch made two years ago used them, and the record must still make sense.

The SKU view: which lines each SKU may use

The list is organised by material, but purchasing often thinks by SKU: "we need to make 200 Lavender jars — what may we buy?" A second view of the same data answers that. For each SKU, it shows the approved line and any approved backups for each material. When the primary is short, the backup is visible; when there is no backup, the gap is visible too, and that is where pre-qualifying a backup is worth doing.

Two things stand out even in three example rows. A backup approved for one SKU (W-02) is not a backup for the others until it is tested there — the change-control hub explains how to bracket so you do not test every SKU in full. And gaps are normal: nobody needs a backup for everything. The list simply makes the risk visible, so that the bestsellers get backups first.

Priced kit: qualifying two backups for a bestseller

Here is the cost of turning two gaps into Approved-backup lines for one bestseller: a Lavender 200 g candle in a White Matte jar, currently on Luxury Soy Wax Chunks and an Eco Thin C1 wick. The backups are qualified one at a time, each against the approved control, as the one-variable post recommends. Test 1 (backup wax, CSI 464): three new and three controls to burn, two of each for storage — 10 candles. Test 2 (backup wick, Cotton Braided): three and three to burn to the end, one and one for the storage check — 8 candles. Chunks and Lavender come from your stock (288 g of oil, about ₹1,555.20 at the 100 g rate). A 5% pour-loss allowance on the backup wax is a labelled assumption.

₹2,161.40 for two new Approved-backup lines on your bestseller. Note the price differences you are recording, not endorsing: CSI 464 is ₹16.85 cheaper per 200 g candle than Chunks in wax, and Cotton Braided is ₹6.10 dearer per candle than Eco Thin C1. A backup is chosen for availability first; the price goes on the line so purchasing knows what switching costs. CSI does not say either backup is equivalent to the primary — the tests say whether each is acceptable for this SKU.

Running the list: reviews, first pours and changes

Once the list exists, everything else in change control gets easier. A change request adds a Trial line; a passing test turns it Approved; a complaint suspends a line; a discontinued product is retired with a note. The approved-specification post builds each SKU's specification from these lines, the reproducible-records post ties batches to them, and the discontinued-material post shows how a retired line and its replacement are documented for the next person to read.

Frequently asked questions