Look into Cornell food science they have a great program for testing shelf life. You can get into a local farmers market and even small mom and pop stores with cold pack sauce that is held at proper fridge temps. Not sure what your local permit processes are. But go simple to get traction and streamline your process then upgrade elements of your process (labels, containers, cooking procedures etc.)

Try to work with a local copacker and focus your time on sales and distribution.

It’s a cycle. You need a product to sell. You need sales and supply chain to create customers. And you need customers to provide feedback so you can make a better product. Of course Marketing and sales makes the cycle flow. So the product can be complete shit, but if your sales you’ll be successful…. Perhaps not for long or ever again.