Selling chocolate from home

[chocolateseller]

My DD is looking to do some fundraising for a trip next year and one idea she's come up with is selling homemade chocolate lollies, decorated with sweets or similar.

We'll definitely do a food hygiene certificate prior to selling anything but from reading on line there is lots of legislation around setting up to sell food from home, registering the business etc. Do you think this is necessary for a short term, charity, effort? Would this be something you would want evidence of before buying something, or would you see it in the same category as cakes at a local fair and not ask too many questions about how they were made?

Am keen to avoid any pitfalls, but it also needs to be feasible against the money we are likely to raise from this.

Alternatively, any other ideas for fundraising? She has already fed lots of neighbours pets this summer!

I wouldn't bat an eye at any of it. However how is she planning on advertising these? If it's online she'll definitely come across people who will dig and report.

I know that a friend of my daughters had to have an extra sink put in the kitchen when she was making and selling vegan cakes.

Was planning on FB using mostly my friendship group plus local village pages. Agree that it would only take one person to investigate or want to cause trouble, might need to rethink.

Yeah, that’s what I had read which is obviously not going to happen!

I just keep thinking about all the cakes you get at fairs and schools and church events - none of them have two sinks!

I know someone who Ds made dog treat cones and they were very popular

I run a food business from home and don’t have two sinks. My kitchen sink has a 1.5 bowl and I have a downstairs WC with sink, so it’s fine.

I’ve had a council inspection and trading standards. The biggest thing for both of them is allergy labelling.

Something like chocolate is very low risk in terms of food poisoning etc so you’ll be fine, much like making cupcakes as you say. If it’s for charity you don’t need to be registered as a business etc.

It would be good practice to be aware of allergens but you’ll learn all about that when you do the food hygiene certificate (you can do that for £10 online). You don’t need to label the individual products if you’re selling them unwrapped. If you prepackage them you should add a label with all ingredients - even the exact ingredients in sprinkles etc. (my biggest headache!)

Call your local EHO or council to get advice. It's highly unlikely that she will need to register if she's doing this as a one-off or limited time charity fundraiser, but they will be able to tell you for certain, and at least you'll have covered yourself if anyone queries it. And you definitely won't need two sinks in the kitchen!

Chocolate is not very low risk in terms of food poisoning.

You don't heat it hot enough to kill any bacteria - which could easily be introduced on any sprinkles / dried fruit etc that's added, or on hands or surfaces. It's full of sugar for bacteria to live on, any moisture and it'll be able to multiply. In fact it's the perfect carrier for food poisoning bacteria. Chocolate manufacture has to take place in low moisture environments and is massively heavily controlled.

It's how Cadbury managed to give loads of people salmonella, because the chocolate never gets to a temp hot enough to kill it, and then it just lives in the chocolate for years.

More recently https://www.foodmanufacture.co.uk/Article/2023/02/07/Salmonella-outbreaks-in-chocolate-factories-one-year-on

The rules are different for one off events.

When I say heavily controlled, I mean the manufacturers put heavy controls in place in their own processes - realised that sounded a bit like there's chocolate police doing dawn raids!

Fair enough, I was told that reheating chilled or frozen meals and hot-holding were the biggest food safety issues, and that anything that didn’t need refrigerating was considered low risk.

Nothing to do with hygiene, but I’d encourage your dd to think of some different treats to make. Chocolate is quite expensive to buy and it’s surprising how much you need to make a lolly. At least cost up a few options.

I do a lot of baking for fundraising and of course I pay for the ingredients myself so am always thinking about the mark up.

could she make something like rocky road or truffles where there’s more of a profit margin? Chocolate dipped biscuits, peppermint creams? Biscotti lasts ages but may not be popular if it’s for kids.

Or the chocolate mafia 🤣

Some good ideas, thank you.

Another thought we had was putting together something like a s’mores kit with marshmallows, biscuits etc. This would be more assembly than cooking / baking so presumably lower risk.

Can't help with food hygiene but all supermarkets sell value chocolate that was about 30 p a bar, but is probably a bit more now.

It's great for baking and sweet making, and is a lot better chocolate than the muck that Cadbury produce.

I used to use it to make brownies, rocky road etc when we had 'cake club' at work and got loads of compliments. People were surprised when I said all the ingredients were the cheapest available in Aldi.

What about sweetie or chocolate cones. So prepackaged already made just decorated

I wouldn’t make anything homemade to sell from home as a fundraiser.
Id call round to various working man/comrade/veteran/bowls clubs and ask to do a pizza stall or something for charity by or near where they have their drinks area. You then order a bunch of pizzas from Papa John/Dominos or whatever and sell them by the slice at a modest markup. The club can call it pizza night (these clubs typically have a drinks and crisps only pub set up, they don’t have kitchens to make & serve food).

You can also call a few churches and offer to do same after the 11am service if it’s a church that does a tea and biscuit social after the service.

Then none of the risk of food trading standards is on you. You’d likely get a few people just donating money if you have a big banner saying what charity it is for.

It's not for charity. Well unless you consider the OP's daughter a charity.

Make sure she does her coatings very carefully-it's easy to end up with nonprofit at all once you factor in packaging and everything.

COSTINGS FFS !!

Oops, I did assume the trip was a charity type trip like how church youth groups go on a trip and help build a school in a poor country or teach English.

I don’t usually see “fundraising” used to mean earn money for a jolly. Can DD simply get a PT job? Is she old enough?

When my daughter was fundraising we did:
Car boot sales - asked friends and relatives to have a clear out....hard work but made about £600.
Cake sales - I made a large number of nicely decorated cup cakes and she set up a stall on a friends driveway in the centre of town with clear charity signs and sold them.
Krispy Creme doughnuts - she got permission from her school to have a day selling them at breaktime. If you ask Krispy creme and the charity is registered they will sell you the doughnuts at cost. She then sold them for 99p, so the students had a bargain but she also made about 50p per doughnut.

All these things needed my input and to be honest were hard work but I think it taught her very valuable lessons and she raised £2600 in a year.

Sorry, I misunderstood as well...thought it was for charity.

Could still do the boot sales though!

Just a heads up, if you're buying cheap chocolate avoid Lidl, their basics range of white, milk and dark all contain peanut paste now! Aldi's and Tesco are the best I find, but agree as above, melted chocolate doesn't go as far as you'd think!