Using a one-off rented kitchen as business premises
Hi wondering if anyone can help with my business idea.
I will be starting to make some smoothies to sell via my website online, and I initially wanted to make these at home and sell D2C. But it seems that its quite complicated to set your home kitchen as my business food premises (renting doesn't help either).
I know that in order to sell food online I have to register with the local authority who will visit to check that the premises is hygienic etc. Because I am making smoothies, can I arrange to rent a commercial kitchen for a day or two, register it and register it as my food premises? As I will only need a day or two to make these smoothies while orders are low.
Is this something I can do, as that way the commercial kitchen will meet all the requirements from the authority, but it isn't a permanent premises for me? Am I able to do this, any help would be great.
Hi, yes you shall register this kitchen with the local authority. You also shall register all premises where you store, pack, process, handle food for example if you pack and send food parcels from home. Make sure your HACCP plan addresses specific hazards of the commercial kitchen: cross contamination, allergens, raw meat & fish, etc.
Out of curiosity, how are you getting the smoothies to your customers?
Are they a dry powdered "drink mix" type product? Or are you sending raw fruit juice/puree?
I'm just wondering how you're controlling microorganism growth. Not trying to be negative, but these are some questions I could see the Health Authority asking you too.
Best of luck.
Hi wondering if anyone can help with my business idea.
I will be starting to make some smoothies to sell via my website online, and I initially wanted to make these at home and sell D2C. But it seems that its quite complicated to set your home kitchen as my business food premises (renting doesn't help either).
I know that in order to sell food online I have to register with the local authority who will visit to check that the premises is hygienic etc. Because I am making smoothies, can I arrange to rent a commercial kitchen for a day or two, register it and register it as my food premises? As I will only need a day or two to make these smoothies while orders are low.
Is this something I can do, as that way the commercial kitchen will meet all the requirements from the authority, but it isn't a permanent premises for me? Am I able to do this, any help would be great.
The commercial kitchen might (hopefully) satisfy the physical requirements in terms of structure, equipment etc., but you'd still be responsible for having appropriate food safety controls, a HACCP plan (you might want to look at https://www.food.gov...r-business-sfbb) etc.
You'll have the added challenge of not knowing what allergens have been used where, unless the kitchen is extremely well-controlled.
What you might find easier is looking into contract drinks manufacturers.There are places that can offer this on a relatively small scale, and they're already set up for the type of product you're making. It might also be worth looking at local colleges and universities in your area to see if any of them have pilot-scale facilities, as some have these for student use but also offer them out to small businesses. Some of these sites are even SALSA certified already.