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With the advent of new cottage food laws in New Jersey, every state now has laws to cover how you can sell food from home. That means whether you’re selling cakes from home, producing home-cooked meals, preserves, candies, or pies, you will be able to start a home-based food business.
Even if you’re a beginner baker, pies are a relatively easy food to sell to make money. However, when selling pies from home, you do have to adhere to your state and county local cottage food laws. You’ll need to check if you need a food hygiene certificate and a permit to sell food from home. You’ll also need to investigate what you can and can’t sell.
It is best to be professional about this if you want to make money legally from selling your pies from home. Some states do issue large fines if you break their food laws and you don’t want to start your home food business on the wrong side of the law.
When starting out, however, the big questions are how to start selling baked goods from home and, more importantly, where can you sell your homemade pies?
Depending on your local cottage food laws, you may be able to offer your pies online as well as sell them directly from your home. Here are just some of the places where you can start selling pies from home:
Etsy is well-known for beautiful, hand-crafted items, but they also allow you to sell home-baked food on their site.
As you might expect, there are many requirements for selling food on Etsy, and you do have to follow your own local cottage food laws. Etsy also recommends that you talk to your local courier, such as USPS, to investigate any rules they have for shipping your pies. This is good general advice if you’re going to sell your pies via a delivery company on any platform, including your own website.
Etsy provides an excellent Seller’s Handbook that will tell you all you need to know about selling food on their site.
As a food seller, you can sign up to sell on Amazon’s Grocery and Gourmet Food marketplace. You do have to keep to your local cottage food laws and Amazon has a host of stipulations and requirements when selling food on their platform.
You will need to label your pies clearly, with a list of the ingredients, an expiration date, any known allergens, such as eggs and gluten, and more. You will also need to follow Amazon’s rules for food product listings, which also include listing ingredients and allergens.
There are also packaging requirements, performance targets, and other conditions for selling on Amazon. It's not an easy feat to start selling food on Amazon.
You can read their guidelines in their Grocery & gourmet foods section on Amazon Seller Central.
Facebook Marketplace is the place to try if you’re thinking about how to sell baked goods on Facebook. You can list goods on your page and in your group, if you have one, and put your pies on Facebook Marketplace.
You’ll be able to set prices, add your own images, and create mouthwatering descriptions with good hashtags that will really get people clicking and buying.
Again, you do have to follow cottage food laws, including labeling your pies properly and preparing them for shipping with appropriate packaging. With Facebook Marketplace, they also expect you to ship your pies within 3 days (if you can legally ship!), and that your customers will receive their order within 7 days.
Check out our full guide, How to Sell Food on Facebook Marketplace, for our top tips, how to market your pies, and more.
If all those additional regulations don’t tempt you to sell on other platforms, you can simply sell on your own website instead. You will still have to check and abide by the cottage food laws in your area, but you won’t have to try to manage more than one platform.
This might be your best option when starting out, and then, if you want to, you can add other platforms later.
Before you worry that you have no idea how to build a full e-commerce site for selling pies or get lost in what to do about inventory and sales tax, take a breath. Then take a look at Castiron’s very own bakery website builder.
It’s free, and you can create your own pie-selling website in minutes. You can keep track of your orders, manage your inventory, and more. And we’ll work out your sales tax for you. It really couldn’t be easier.
With running a home bakery business, these decisions are down to you. If you can cope with meeting the expectations and requirements of sites like Amazon and Facebook, then there’s nothing to stop you from selling your pies on all platforms.
However, don’t limit yourself when looking at how to sell food from home. Depending on your state, you may be able to sell your pies to local restaurants, coffee shops, and stores. Or you could sell at farmer’s markets and local fairs. You may even find that local businesses want to order your pies for lunch options or snacks.
Whatever you choose, selling pies from home is within your reach. Pies are some of the best baked goods to sell from home. And it’s possible to make a good income from them, too.
Want to get your home bakery business website set up easily without needing to pay for it? Sign up to Castiron and create your new website in minutes. Even better, you can manage your inventory, take payments, keep track of sales tax, and more, all from our free platform.
Many successful pie shops were started by selling pies from home. After perfecting your recipes, securing your inventory, and building a client base, it is possible to continue selling food from home and make a delicious profit. When you start learning how to sell baked goods from home, you will discover many tools and apps that can help with how to sell baked goods to coffee shops and how to sell to farmers' markets.
Choose a food business software specifically designed for helping cooks manage the business side of selling baked goods and other prepared foods from home. These apps help you manage your entire operation with confidence. Some include a POS or point-of-sell tool that will allow you to directly accept deposits and payments within the app.
It is also a great idea to establish a website that is geo-tagged to your local community (major street names or community names). Your website can be your best salesperson, so take the time to make it visually appealing and easy to navigate. When you choose to sell pies B2B, (from your business to restaurants, farmers markets, and coffee shops), they want to see an entrepreneur who is a fantastic pie maker and one who is also a serious business person.
Learning how to sell pies online is made easier than ever. Anyone with a computer can be an online merchant. Options for selling homemade food online include peer-to-peer platforms like Etsy and e-commerce platforms like Castiron, Amazon, or Facebook Marketplace. Some of these big-name businesses even offer helpful sales tips and tricks.
Familiarize yourself with the rules and guidelines of any platform you are using. For instance, Facebook Marketplace states that handmade goods must be shipped within 3 days and received by the customer within 7 days. Also, Facebook follows the Cottage Food Law which allows for the sale of foods that don’t go bad when not refrigerated.
Investigate how to sell baked goods online through Amazon's Grocery and Gourmet Food marketplace. Here, All products must comply with all regulations and must be properly prepared, sealed, packaged, and labeled. Also, foods sold on Amazon must be UPC labeled and require approval before listing.
If you want to avoid all the legalese these platforms require when selling homemade food online, then you may want to opt for proprietary food selling options. These software companies have designed the tools, platform, and software needed to help independent chefs and cooks/ streamline their home-based food businesses.
Partner with one of these software companies that make selling homemade food online easy, simple, and fast. Here are more things that you should consider when learning how to sell pies online:
If you're wondering "do you need a license to sell baked goods from home?", the answer is yes... sometimes. Some states require you to take a food safety training course, before applying for a food vendor's license. Research the steps you must take on how to get license to sell food. You should also consider taking an online food handler class that offers certification. This will add good legitimacy to your business.
A permit to sell food from home to buyers within state limits is required in 30 states. Some states have significantly expanded cottage industry laws for home-based food businesses making it easier to sell food online. For example:
A permit to sell food from home will allow you to sell goods online in most states. You will still have to get a business license and register your business with the local authorities. Some states will also require regular inspections.
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The Cake Whisperer
My business would not be the same without my Castiron website! It is an easy setup with lots of customization and tons of support! I am so glad I set up my shop last year before the holidays — it really helped increase my sales!
The Whimsical Cookie
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Castiron provides me a professional site to my customers increasing my credibility and value while giving me the tools to effectively market and manage my business in an easy, user-friendly manner.
Wesley's Treats Hallie's Sweets
Castiron has made my cottage bakery shine, and my business easy to manage. As a platform they care about my business as much as I do.
Explore our tools for free during a 14-day free trial. Start building your website, create your custom order forms, even start taking orders and payments... then decide if it’s for you.
Easy to start, created specifically for local, handmade food: Castiron’s website builder was created to help you grow. Create a website in minutes with our templates, sell where and how your customers want to buy, and look professional without being technical. Keep customers coming back with email marketing tools, customer records, and more.
Food entrepreneurs, this is your moment. Your community is more and more conscious about what they buy and where it is from. They want food made with love. With ingredients they can pronounce. And they want to support their community while doing it.
Castiron is the best fit for your food business because we're not a one-size-fits-all tool. Selling local food is different from pre-packaged warehouse products. Whether you sell cooking classes, need local pick up, utilize pre-sales to plan inventory, or need a fully custom order form — we got you.
No code required. Add pages, sell your products, build order forms, and show off your beautiful work. We'll handle the tech so you can focus on growing your food business.
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