Has anyone started their own business?

[mousehousehiest]

I need a little bit of help, please.

I really want to get started making jams and other preserves for sale. I've been making making for friends and family for years. I eat a lot of it. It's quite good quality and really very nice to eat.
Never spoiled.
I would say I am at an 'advanced' level at growing and preserving.

The logical next step would be selling but my goodness. It's a minefield. Food hygiene and registering and everything else.

I was looking online and it said a food hygiene course is £500. I don't have that! especially when I'll probably only be making £30 if I'm lucky over the first year as I have 0 customer base. (all of my potential customers already receive jams and chutneys and salts for free 😲)

Is it doable for a working class, single income family to start selling food or should I just give up like I did last year and the year
before.
or is it possible?

I really enjoy making the jams and other bits. but you can only eat so much! I'd love to progress but the business side and legal side is very daunting. so does anybody have any advice? or tips? or success and even horror stories?

Google is great but the anecdotal, chatting side of the Internet mumsnet is so much easier to process.

bump

I think you would need to work out if this will make you any money......even without the food hygiene certificate (and you will also need to have your kitchen inspected and approved) then the cost of the fruit/jars and your time may well mean you cannot compete with supermarket prices. That may still work if you have a very good quality product and can brand your jams accordingly and then sell them at farmers markets or food fairs where people are prepared to pay a bit more. Good luck with whatever you do!

I think if £500 is out of reach, this probably isn’t the venture for you, as start ups costs can be huge. But your best bet would be finding someone who done exactly this sort of business and ask them about their costs and profits and how they got started. I would assume you’d need to buy jars and labels, all ingredients, and you’d either need to attend an event (fete, farmers market, etc) to sell (do you have weekends free?) or get your products marketed at local independent shops.

We have a business where we started off selling at food festivals and county shows, and it is quite a lot of work during anti-social hours. Granted we could make £2000 in a weekend (selling items that were £25-300 each), but it made for long days, and you often need to bring your own tent/table/need a good sized car/van for it all. There are lots of people who sell jams and chutneys at these sorts of places, but it’s all in the marketing and making something novel that stands out (otherwise people will just buy the £1 jar from Asda as it’s so much cheaper). Can you make anything really interesting and different? Otherwise I’d cost up how much you think it would make you to make a jar (ingredients and electric, etc) and see what you’d need to sell it to a shop for to make a profit.

I did a food hygiene course for around £60, £200 sounds crazy. You would need insurance but other than that you don’t need much else. Jam isn’t a high risk food so the council are no longer bothered about checking out your kitchen.

I live in a area where lots of people sell jams and chutneys from there doorsteps, I doubt many have a hygiene certificate tbh.

I would have a thorough read through these links OP, which contain all the information you need and are laid out quite helpfully and simply IMO. As you will see if you have a read through a food hygiene course and certificate is not compulsory but you would need to demonstrate that you understand what is required of you are are putting requirements of hygiene and food labelling into practice when you are inspected.

www.food.gov.uk/business-guidance/starting-a-food-business-from-home

www.food.gov.uk/business-guidance/food-hygiene-for-your-business

Free food safety and training courses - www.food.gov.uk/business-guidance/online-food-safety-training

Compliances aside you ideally need to work out a business plan, even if just a basic one. Understanding exactly what it costs for you to produce the jam (electricity, containers, ingredients, labels, your time) and then what comparable products sell for and then what profit that leaves you, if any, is your biggest indicator of knowing how viable this would be as a business.

Have a think about how and where you would sell the product and whether there are any costs involved in that (stall prices, marketing, petrol etc) and again run costs, see if there are ways to reduce them that would cut down on costs.

I would start small, decide on some branding and a name for your business (you can design for free on apps like Canva) and start a Facebook and/or Instagram page (also free) and stop giving it away to friends and family quite as much as you do. Most friends and family would surely be happy to support you in this and pay, or at the very least leave you positive reviews and feedback. I know I certainly wouldn't be expecting freebies from a friend or family members business, albeit the odd one of course is a lovely treat!

What you make sounds lovely OP, and I hope you're able to make a success with it, or at the very least start planning to see how that could happen.

Well I could get the money but it wouldn't be fair to use family money for my 'dream' when it could go badly.
The jars are sorted, the fruit is home grown so 'free' now and local.

it would be fun I was thinking car boots, do you need anything to sell maybe once a quarter as a trial?

What is stopping me is the fact that I would like to try it out first (because apparently turning your hobby into your job can cause you to not like your hobby anymore) I don't want to waste money on something I wouldn't like in the long run or something that isn't profitable to me.
(although, the low waste, local, eco friendly aspect is the reason I started making my own jams and it carried on from there)

Thank you all very kind. Its probably just a pipe dream. I do have an Instagram page but it's more of a diary with only about 100 followers.

posted too soon.
but I keep forgetting to take photos.

It's daunting to be honest. perhaps I could have a go at the school fair and Christmas and see how it goes

You definitely need a business plan. I can’t see that selling at fairs, car boots etc would ever give you more than some extra cash. You’d need to be selling in bulk in farm shops, getting into supermarkets, hotels etc.

Have you got any local hotels/cafes that would want to use and sell homemade produce?

How about running some events where you teach people how to make their own jams/chutneys? They can take home what they make and an opportunity for you to sell what you’ve made? Run it as a day with some lunch included and depending on where you are I’m sure you could easily get £50-£75 per person.

To your friends " here is the last batch of free samples. If you are interested in the next batch, I welcome a donation of any amount towards my starting a business fund"

Yes, I think even the fridges have to even be acertain way - a lot of legislation.

But it's the spirit, what is the aim?

You need a level 2 food hygiene certificate which costs about £20

www.highspeedtraining.co.uk/courses/food-hygiene/help-me-decide/

And your local council will inspect your home, give you advice and a certificate.

Then you'll need public liability insurance, which won't be too onerous either.

That's it. All sorted in about a week.

I make cakes and chocolates

@SamphirethePogoingStickerist that doesn't sound too bad at all how much do you pay for the insurance? and thanks I can show dh this thread and bat my eyes 😄

I pay about £40/year, but that includes other things as well. It really isn't all that expensive.

You can rent decent local market tables for about £30, maybe look at the ex WI markets, local craft and produce markets as well as car boot sales.

If you find a local produce market they will ask for all the relevant certificates. They often have Facebook pages for traders where you might be able to find someone to share a table with.

But first you really should work out your actual costs. From jar, label, contents, fuel, time and everything else you can thing of.

@SamphirethePogoingStickerist thank you that clear list is what I needed. it's a bit confusing and my councils page is a bit hodge podge with confusing / contradicting info.

Google business start up grants. I had one, many years ago. I think I had to attend a few half day lectures or workshop type things but they were helpful.
Have you contacted your local college about the food hygiene course? You might be able to join in with a group of students, used to be a one day course but probably changed.

Locally to you, who's making decent (any) money doing this. I can tell you the answer for me... No one.

You'll make nothing selling at car boots. You're trying to sell to people who want to pay a premium for a better product, and that is not the market place for it.

As PP stated, you need farm shops etc to stock it and sell it for you, because anyone can get lovely jam for £3-4 at convenience of the supermarket.

Honestly, and it might sound harsh, but you'll only make money by making what people want, not what you like to make then hoping someone buys it.

I’d say stop giving your produce away free and try and get a stall at a food market, you will have ready made customers there rather than struggling to get people to come to you.

You could see if you have a local Country Market. You can look here: www.country-markets.co.uk

They are full of people selling home made items (food, cakes, preserves, crafts etc). You need to have your food hygiene certificates etc, but it might be a way of selling somewhere which already has a customer base.

You would make more money by doing classes eg an afternoon jam class. Especially for things like hen dos, or birthday parties. Could do cookery classes for kids after school club etc.

Set up a Facebook page and get your friends to like and share. I’ve also seen adverts on next door for local honey producers, try that too. Just starting points to build your confidence and assess if the business is viable. Use any feedback you get (positive or negative) to develop your business.

Look at market traders insurance

I run a business selling a product I’ve grown in a processed form and I avoid selling to shops etc as they want such huge discounts it’s not worth it and before anyone says it’s not a good business it is. Why work twice as hard for the same profit amount. It’s better to sell fewer items at higher profit.

Talks are always a good thing to do at local WIs etc as they will pay a fee for the talk and then buy the product at the talk. You have a good back story with growing the fruit.

Some people work short term subscriptions very well. A cut flower growing one has recently popped up on my Facebook feed at £22 per month for a year with seeds and growing support! A jam club of two jars a month posted out or similar and you could add in other things as well.
Gifts for people look at Bothams in Whitby and they do a massive trade in gift hampers/bags really well presented.
You can buy jute bags that hold three jars.

Contact you council and they are a great source of advice, look for free local business courses. Again ask the council.

But aim to sell less product for more money.

Make sure your labels are beautiful, artistic rather than corporate. Lots of people used to pick up my jars and admire the labels. I paid a local commercial artist to do them and it was money well spent.
How much money would make it worthwhile to you? £100 a year or £10.000?
Work out how many jars you would have to make to achieve that. Do you have the time and resources to do it.
Farmer’s markets: research what’s around you in a 30-40 mile radius as you need to be at the more affluent destination ones where people think nothing of spending £30 plus at the stalls they like. Going to the little shabby ones in village halls is a waste of time, ditto car boots. Everyone there is looking for a bargain. These people are not your target audience.
The lady who came from the council was super helpful, nothing to be worried about. It was all pretty straightforward.
All the government ‘grants’ offered to small businesses were reliant on doing total waste of time ‘courses’ which then led on to an interview which basically informs you that any grant money starts at £25k and you can only have it if you jump through a zillion complicated hoops and can match it with the same amount.
Put bread and spoons out for people to try your wares, the more people are clustered around your stall the more people come over and the more they buy.

It was good fun while it lasted and really hard work.

oh I don't really care about the money. I have an abundance of fruit, veg and am really into low waste local stuff. I dont care if I sold a jar for a £1 or £10
it costs me only the sugar and the jars and lids.

I would never stop giving the jam to my family. I'm quite flattered that they like it! and it's nice nice pop round and have jam on toast with good jam I like 😄

Just do it then OP! Book in a farmers market and take it from there! Good luck!

@mousehousehiest I'm sure I heard of someone with an onlyfans account for angling skills like making fishing lures. Stealing foraging seems very popular and without a set of scales I imagine it's quite hard to guesstimate how much jam wild fruits on a bush will make.
Might people pay for your advanced knowledge of growing, harvesting, preserving and bottling?