How to Sell Food Online From Home

Have you ever ordered food from a restaurant and thought that you could make it better? If so, you’re not alone. Plenty of people enjoy crafting delights in the kitchen, and it’s why home-based food businesses are thriving right now.

If you’re thinking about learning how to start a small cooking business from home, there is a path you can follow to success. While this won’t break down every detail of starting a home food business, it will outline the journey.

In general, you will go through four steps before you get your business off the ground. The first is the planning stage. This is where you seriously consider how you will cook and supply food. You’ll go through the logistics to make sure your kitchen is up to the task, and you’ll learn about technology resources that help with selling homemade food online.

Your second step is conquering the legal aspect of cooking from home to sell food. Each state has its own laws, and we’ll outline the general rules that you can expect.

After that, you have to consider how you will convince people to buy your food. What do you need in place to build trust that your food is high-quality and worth buying.

Lastly, you have to find the right ideas for the specific food you want to make. What kind of food is it? What makes it special? This crash course will walk you through all of it to help you learn how to start a small cooking business from home.

How to Start Online Food Business From Home

If you’re wondering how to sell home-cooked food online, there’s a bit of a process at play. You can’t just make some food and then sell it to people on Facebook. Ok, in a literal sense, you could try to do that, but you are not likely to have much success. There are food regulations to consider (more on that in the next section), and it’s always best to have a good business model. You can really break your strategy into two parts. You need a plan to make and sell the food, and you need a plan for the online, technological aspect of the business model.

For the first, you’ll have to strategize what kind of food you want to sell, how you can make it and how you will be able to deliver it once purchased. These are big questions. Even when you’re planning how to start a small food business at home, the logistics can be challenging. How much food are you planning to cook and sell? How long does it take per item or batch? How much can you reasonably make in a day? What tools do you need in your kitchen?

For distribution, how do people get the food you cook? Do you deliver it? Do they come to you to pick it up? How long does it take people to get food when they order it? You can see how quickly this becomes complicated. Figuring out your strategy for making and delivering is the crux of learning how to start a small food business at home.

For technology concerns, you look for apps that help you learn how to sell homemade food online. They can automate some of the processes and make the technology portion of the process easier. Surprisingly, the help available for this portion of your strategy can sometimes make it easier than figuring out the raw logistics of making and selling the food.

At this point, you're ready to learn about how to get a license to sell food.

Permit to Sell Food From Home

If you want to know how to start an online food business from home, you first have to understand the legal process. In general, the regulations that govern this industry are known as “cottage food laws.” They vary by state, so you’ll need to do specific research for the laws in your state.

When you investigate these laws, you’ll find the regulations that determine which foods and types of food sales require a licensed kitchen. In general, foods that require refrigeration will require a licensed kitchen, but this too will vary by state. If you need a licensed kitchen, you’ll want to follow the regulations down that path to get your kitchen properly certified. This usually includes an inspection from a certified member of the health department. If you fall short on any of this, there can be a substantial fine for selling food from home.

The advantage of getting a licensed kitchen is that you have regulatory approval for a wide range of commercial kitchen applications. The types of foods you can make and sell are diverse, and that gives you a lot of freedom in how you run your home business.

If your food will not require a licensed kitchen, there will still be regulations in place, and you need to carefully review them. Most cottage food laws regulate how much food you can sell and who can purchase your food. 

As an example, you can get a permit to sell food from your home in Florida, or you can use cottage food laws to sell small amounts of food at a farmer’s market. There is no special licensing system for the food itself when you sell to a farmer’s market. Instead, you can only sell food that is on a pre-approved list, and there are limits on the quantities that you can sell at each market.

If you want a scalable distribution plan, you’ll eventually need to acquire more certifications and express approval from the government. If you’re wondering, “Do I need a license to sell food from my home?” The answer depends on your city, county, or state.

Once you have worked through how to get a permit to sell food from home, you can move on to the next phase of planning for your home kitchen. You’ll be ready to take big steps towards opening your business and reaping the benefits.

Selling Home Cooked Food to the Public

When you plan on selling home-cooked food to the public, there are two schools of thought to consider. What do people think about when buying food from a home kitchen? What does your state think about it?

Let’s start with the first question. If you were going to buy food from a home kitchen, what questions or concerns would you have? Of course, price comes into consideration, but you also want guarantees on food safety and quality. How do you really know that the kitchen can keep you safe from food allergies? How do you know it’s safe from foodborne illnesses? Is it really cooked correctly? You have to convey confidence in all of these concerns in order to succeed on food selling websites.

One of the easiest ways to convey that confidence is to get state-run certifications. When you know how to sell food from home legally, you can display your certifications to boost confidence. For cottage food rules, most states will require that you can guarantee that children and pets are nowhere near the food production. Sellers also have to provide labels for every product with a full list of ingredients. Complying with this helps build consumer confidence.

Many cottage food rules require you to include a disclaimer that shows your food is not licensed or inspected. It’s worth considering going through an inspection process to remove this disclaimer if consumer confidence is an issue. Even if it isn’t an issue, demonstrating your compliance with cottage food rules will still help buyers see that you produce safe, reliable food that they can freely enjoy. Determining whether you want to use cottage food laws or professional licensing will be a major point when you are learning how to make money selling food from home.

Food business From Home Ideas

Now that you have an idea of what is involved in starting a business, it’s important to come up with food ideas to sell from home. Basically every genre of food is a possibility, so you need to think about what you like and what you can bring to the table.

Can you provide a type of cuisine that is lacking in your area? Can you make southern comfort meals for sale in Michigan? Maybe you have some ideas for baked goods that will leave people dazzled. Are you into fusion styles that mix classic cuisines to create new experiences?

You can see how the possibilities are endless, but a few general ideas can help you come up with food products to sell online. First, think about the type of food you want to sell (not the genre). You can sell whole meals, snacks, desserts or components. If you want, you can sell multiple types of foods, but it helps to distinguish whether you are jarring jam or selling complete meals. They are completely different processes.

The second key to making homemade food products to sell is to think about how you can disrupt your local scene. The food has to get from your kitchen to customers, so you don’t need to worry about shipping food across the country from the start (even if you are planning food products to sell online). Instead, focus on something that you would like to eat but can rarely find in your area. That’s a niche you can fill.

Lastly, consider complexity. In most cases, it’s best to conquer a simple food that you can replicate very easily. The simplicity of your food doesn’t have to limit the flavor or type of food. You can crack an amazing beef dinner that you sell, but you want the food prep process to be very repeatable. Simplicity is your friend, so think long and hard about a method that you can follow for consistent success.

With these three food business from home ideas in your head, you can pursue recipes that delight your customers, and your business can thrive.

Additional Resources

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