More people than ever are starting their own businesses. Working for yourself is appealing for so many reasons, and with so many people losing their jobs or facing an uncertain future due to COVID-19, it can be the perfect time to take a risk and try something new. If you are a keen cook and love to create meals for your friends and family, you might consider starting your own food business.
Traditionally, the best way to do this might have been opening your own store or café or renting a commercial kitchen to sell food to other businesses. Today, however, a better option, especially if you are operating on a limited budget, can be creating and selling food from your own home. But, why should you, and what do you need to do?
Why Start a Home Food Business?
You might be worried that you need special health and safety certificates, training, or kitchen inspections to start a kitchen from home, but it’s often simpler than you might think. Here are some of the other reasons starting from home can be a great idea.
- Low start-up costs
- Help from family
- Fewer risks if it doesn’t work
- Easier to start slowly and even work around another job
- Chance to practice before launch
Register Your Business
The first thing that you need to do before selling food from home is registering your business and yourself as a self-employed person or company. You may need some basic health and safety training, and a health officer may want to inspect your home. But, all of this is usually fairly straightforward. Specific requirements depend on where you live, so double-check online first.
Perfect Your Recipes
Your recipes might be good enough for your family and friends, but if you are going to sell to the public, they need to be perfect, better than others, and consistent between batches. You might want to work on new flavors and ideas too.
Do Some Market Research
You may have been told that you should sell your food, but the people that have said it love you and are biased. Take your time to see what other people think of your food, and spend time researching your competition, to see what is already available, what it looks and tastes like, and how much it costs.
Find the Right Packaging
Not only is making your food and drinks with top quality tools like cookware, a coffee brush and utensils important, packaging is just as important and can make an impression about how you run your business. Packaging for food is extremely important. Think about the best packaging to contain your product without damage to taste or appearance, while also keeping it fresh. Packaging should be food-safe and reliable, but it also needs to fit within your budget. Take a look at https://plaspack.com/industry/food-beverage/ for some of the best options.
Consider Delivery
How you deliver your product will also affect which packaging you choose. If you will be posting your products, the packaging will need to be hardy and weatherproof. You might prefer to stick to local delivery and collections, especially if you serve food that needs to be kept hot or cold.
Make a Marketing Plan
Once you know what you are selling and how it’s time to market your product and business, social media is a great place to start. But, take your time to make a marketing plan for your small business before opening day.
