Seth Rogen described this film as a dark take on Disney films, saying, "People like to project their emotions onto the things around them: their toys, their cars, their pets . . . So we thought, 'What would it be like if our food had feelings?' We very quickly realized that it would be fucked up."
Due to the graphic content, the MPAA did not know what to do with this film. Seth Rogen made an argument to alleviate the trade association's confusion, whose standpoint was, "It's an unprecedented area." Rogen replied, "Well is it a dick if it's food?"
According to writer Seth Rogen, in order to get the movie its desired R rating (and not a commercially undesirable NC-17 rating), the directors purposely submitted a version with several raunchy scenes that they expected the MPAA to take issue with. This is quite common practice, because such scenes often draw the attention from the MPAA, and allow other, comparatively less offensive scenes to pass almost unnoticed. However, to their surprise, the MPAA only insisted that hair be removed from Lavash's genitals in order to keep its R rating rather than NC-17.
Seth Rogen developed the idea of the film in 2007. It was based on something he and Jonah Hill would joke around about. While promoting Superbad (2007) and Knocked Up (2007), people would ask Rogen what his next project will be, in which he jokingly replied, "It's called 'Sausage Party.'"
While most animated movies cost about $100 million to make, this film cost $19 million.