How To Sell Food Online: Step-by-Step recent business navigator

When Bob McClure was ready to level up his household business, McClure’s Pickles, he found shared commercial space in a tofu factory. The well bacteria in the air—caused by the fermentation procedure of the soybeans—ruined his entire first batch of pickles.

While every industry comes with complications, food businesses often face distinctive challenges. There’s an increased uncertainty of legal consequences, the delicate dance of inventory and expiry dates, and a volatile supply chain that can be affected by anything from weather to airborne bacteria.

For many, however, there’s nothing more fulfilling than making great food and feeding people. If you’re ready to receive on the test and realize your aspiration of starting a food business, you’re in the correct place.

This step-by-step navigator teaches you how to sell food online, with specialist advice on navigating food law, maximizing your marketing dollars, and building a mouth-watering brand.

How to sell food online in 13 steps

1. Research food laws
2. discover your niche
3. Decide on a operating schedule: produced vs. curated
4. Source ingredients
5. Determine your food production model
6. construct your brand
7. Run the numbers
8. worth your food products
9. Set up inventory management
10. schedule for growth and product advancement
11. Set up shipping
12. Choose your sales channels
13. trade your food business

1. Research food laws

Normally, the first step to starting a business is landing on a great concept. With food businesses, however, it’s significant to comprehend the complexity of food laws before diving in.

When making and selling food online, safety is always a concern. Government organizations closely regulate and monitor the food industry to ensure community safety, but the onus is on the business owner to stick to the rules and be obsessive about standard.

Provided you do your homework, acquire the proper licenses, and meticulously track everything, the likelihood of getting into warm water with the health department is low. But if you do, the consequences can be severe, says food lawyer Glenford Jameson. “The government can throw you in jail, receive all your products and ruin them, shut you down, or provide you a large fine.”

Food inspectors propose you some pretty sage and, frankly, free advice on how to make sure you’re making a excellent and reasonable product.

Glenford Jameson, Food Lawyer

If your product is complicated or requires additional licensing (meat, fish, and some agricultural products, for example), you may desire to consult a lawyer with encounter in the food industry. Though the upfront expense may be high for a recent business owner, it could avoid even costlier consequences down the road.

If you choose to navigate the legalities of running a food business without a lawyer, be sure to pursue these general best practices:

• Properly handle and store food. discover how to properly handle and store food. Keep tabs on food preparation practices. Make sure you do what it takes so people don’t get ill eating your food.
• Trace the supply chain. inquire questions of your suppliers and get referrals.
• Work with a lab to test your products. Labs can assist identify and trace elements that may be known to factor allergic reactions.
• Keep thorough records. Track everything coming in and going out of your facility.
• Make friends with the food inspector. They are there to identify issues and set you up for achievement. “Food inspectors propose you some pretty sage and, frankly, free advice on how to make sure you’re making a excellent and reasonable product,” says Glenford.
• Get debt insurance. Be sure you’re covered in case anyone does get ill.

Note: Every country and region differs in terms of food laws and licensing requirements, and some industries, like dairy and alcohol, may be subject to additional rules. Be sure to consult with a lawyer and your local government for information specific to your business and region. For the purposes of this piece, information and tips will be general, and should not be taken as legal advice.

2. discover your niche

In many cases, the best online business ideas are born out of a thrill or a hobby. The same is factual for selling food. For example, if you make jams for friends and household from strawberries grown in your own backyard, that’s a excellent place to commence. You already recognize the procedure and have had encounter honing and testing the recipes.

Bob McClure and his brother Joe grew up making pickles with their grandma Lala, and it was her household recipe that ultimately inspired their business, McClure’s Pickles. An actor and a psychology major, respectively, they didn’t recognize the first thing about business or manufacturing, but their tried-and-factual household recipe was their foundation.

Food trends

If you don’t yet have a product concept, look into current food trends. The recent York Times predicts fusion snacks, warm sauces with complicated flavors, and plain-ancient soup as viral achievement for 2024.

Other places to watch food trends include Google Trends, food publications, and social media platforms like TikTok.

Bear in mind, however, that jumping on a pattern means you’ll encounter plenty of competition. inquire yourself how your product can stand out in a noisy trade.

When the McClures decided to propose a additional expense pickled product, they had very little competition. More than a decade later, though, pickling gained popularity as part of the leisurely food movement. Bob sees the competition as a excellent thing. “It’s the correct type of competition if it’s bringing awareness to highly specialized, standard-driven entrepreneurial products,” he says. “It helps enhance our entire category.”

More food business ideas

Another way to discover a great concept is to discover a gap in the trade. Many profitable food business ideas commence with solving a issue or filling the needs of a niche trade.

Could your food business be in one of these niches:

• Custom or novelty products
• Gourmet, artisanal, and tiny batch food
• Allergen free, gluten free, or nut free
• Certified organic, natural, and fair trade ingredients
• Vegan, vegetarian, kosher, or halal foods
• Paleo, keto, or low carb
• Food videos, recipes, meal kits, and cookbooks

Jodi Bager’s business, Grain Zero, grew from her experiences managing ulcerative colitis. Its spectators is made of people also living with colitis and other forms of bowel disease. She produces well snack options without the ingredients that commonly trigger her state. “We also address the needs of the growing paleo throng,” Jodi says, “and we’re appealing to a wider spectators than ever before.”

Ideas for beginners

If you’re recent to food, look into straightforward tiny business ideas that require a low resource, minimal equipment, and fewer shipping challenges and legal restrictions.

Some lower resource ideas include:

• Candy
• Packaged snacks
• Canned and pickled products
• Dried herbs
• Baked excellent ingredient kits
• Bulk nuts and seeds
• Raw ingredients (flours, etc.)
• Curated resale (products made by other vendors)
• Coffee and tea

Thirteen-year-ancient Charlie Cabdish makes and sells candied pecans from his household’s home. It’s a business he can run from a domestic kitchen, between school work and basketball habit.

trade research

If you have an concept already, test its viability. Is there a trade for this product? If it’s a saturated trade, how can your product differ? Is there an untapped niche or underserved customer?

Your trade research should include looking into the rules that govern the specific industry. Is selling your product online and shipping it even feasible? Here are a few questions to inquire:

• Is it legal to sell your product online in the region where you operate or schedule to ship? ponder liquor or cannabis infused products.
• Is your product too fragile to ship? What special packaging would be required to protect it? ponder flaky pastries or glass jars.
• Does the shelf life of your food product make inventory too challenging? ponder bakery goods or guacamole.
• Does your product require refrigeration? If so, how does that limit your shipping radius or carrier options? ponder meats or fresh dips.

3. Decide on a operating schedule: produced vs. curated

There are many ways to commence a business in the food industry from supplying raw ingredients to manufacturers to opening your own restaurant, but if you desire to sell food online, there are two main business models.

Producing food products to sell

This operating schedule refers to producing food in either a home-based business or commercial facility and selling it direct to consumers (DTC). You may choose to handle the packed supply chain and be personally involved in production or work with a third-event manufacturer that produces and packages a recipe to your specifications. In this model, you may also expand your selling channels and consider wholesaling to other shops.

Legal note: Many regions have cottage food laws that allow you to produce sure food items in a domestic kitchen without conference the same requirements as commercial kitchens. In the US, be sure to look into each state’s cottage food laws, as they can differ by region.

Curating and reselling food

This model involves reselling by curating other brands’ products under your own banner. Your distinctive selling proposition (USP) may be that your shop brings the best of a single product type (declare, mustards from around the globe) to a single shopping encounter. Otherwise, you may try dropshipping to bring another brand’s products to a recent trade.

Note: Much of this piece applies to food production businesses. If you’re looking to curate existing food products, scroll down to step 6 to commence building your brand.

4. Source ingredients

Glenford stresses the importance of doing your homework when sourcing your ingredients. “Trace the supply chain,” he says, so that your packaging claims match what’s inside and you’re working with trustworthy companies.

If you schedule to produce a product that will be labeled organic, for example, be sure your raw ingredient supplier has the proper certification before making claims on your packaging.

Developing a connection with your supplier improves depend and makes them feel more invested in your business. “Sometimes our suppliers make suggestions based on something recent that comes to trade,” says Jodi. “It’s a collaborative collaboration.”

• When you’re just starting out and producing tiny batches, it may be expense effective to shop for ingredients at customer warehouse club stores like Costco or Sam’s Club.
• Make connections. In sure industries, finding suppliers may depend on word of mouth and personal introductions. The founders of Soul Chocolate networked in the industry to make connections with regional cacao farmers.
• Alternatively, for raw materials like cacao and coffee beans, look for a distributor or agent who works directly with farmers.
• throng up with other tiny-batch producers to purchase bulk wholesale ingredients together.

5. Determine your food production model

Though McClure’s Pickles started in their household kitchen, the household continuously upgraded their production. “When we were first starting out, we rented a kitchen that had a larger stove,” says Bob, “and we would call up our friends and declare, ‘Hey, I’ll buy you pizza and beer if you arrive make pickles with me on the weekend.’”

The business eventually landed a 20,000-square-foot factory space. McClure’s serves as a great example of how to scale production as you develop. Starting from a home-based facility is a low-uncertainty way to test your operating schedule.

Selling food from home

Some food items can legally be produced and sold correct from your domestic kitchen, but look into the regulations surrounding your chosen product. In the US, the FDA requires you register your home-based business as a facility. You may require to make upgrades to your home setup, such as improved ventilation. Be sure you secure the required license to sell food from home in your region.

Renting from shared commercial kitchens

Many facilities propose shared or co-op kitchen space that you can rent hourly or monthly, depending on your production needs. The benefits are:

• Reduced costs. You don’t require to buy equipment from scratch and the shared model means you’re not covering rent on your own.
• Less paperwork. These facilities are already registered as commercial space and have appropriate insurance.
• Shared knowledge. Exposure to other tiny business owners allows you to discover from others and construct throng.

Setting up your own commercial facility

Have packed autonomy and commence from scratch with this model, building a facility that meets your needs from the commence. This is the most expensive alternative and one that requires assessment—you are responsible for ensuring your facility meets code and is properly licensed.

This may not be the best alternative for recent entrepreneurs, but rather a upcoming objective. “We started tiny in our home kitchen and then grew from there,” says Jodi. “We did not shift out until we were bursting at the seams and knew we had a large enough business to back the shift.”

It is really impressive how much diligence goes into running a USDA-inspected facility.

Daniel Patricio, Founder, Bull & Cleaver

Working with an existing manufacturer

This alternative is great for hands-off entrepreneurs who are more interested in the business than the production. It’s a secure alternative for industry newbies, too, as the manufacturers should already be versed in food safety and regulations. While the concept, recipe, and brand are all yours, the execution is left to the pros. This gives you more period to invest in other aspects of the business.

“We partnered up with someone that had a USDA-inspected facility so that we could ship across the US sooner, without any food safety issues,” says Bull & Cleaver founder Daniel Patricio. “It is really impressive how much diligence goes into running a USDA-inspected facility.”

6. construct your brand

Selling food online is especially challenging because the most significant selection-making sense—taste—can’t be accessed. Because customers can’t sample your product, branding is especially significant. Package design, photography, website, product page, and copy require to work together to inform your narrative and assist customers imagine how your product might taste.

With packaging being so critical in this industry, consider hiring a designer to assist with your needs.

Building a brand starts with answering a few questions about how you desire customers to perceive your business. “We chose our name and our identity—everything from the label, the look, the feel, the text—to be something that connotes handmade and household, yet urban,” says Bob.

Here are some branding resources:

• straightforward and Low expense Ways to construct a Memorable Brand Identity
• How To Design a Memorable Logo in 8 straightforward Steps
• Food Photography 101: How to receive Perfect Pictures of Your Food
• What Is Brand Voice and How To make One for You Business
• Selling Through Storytelling: How to Craft a Compelling Brand narrative

Packaging and labeling laws

Aside from the visual appeal of your packaging, each country has its own labeling requirements, which may include best-before dates, nutritional information, allergen warnings, and country of origin. If you schedule to ship your product across borders, especially to retailers, be sure to check the goal country’s rules around labeling.

Helpful resources:

• FDA food labeling, ingredients, and packaging information (US)
• FTC Fair Packaging and Labeling Act (US)
• CFIA food labeling requirements (Canada)
• Food Labeling Information structure (EU)
• Food labeling and packaging (UK)

7. Run the numbers

How much does it really expense to commence a food business? If you were to open a restaurant or physical food store, your upfront costs could be upward of $175,000. But there are many ways to get started with much smaller recent business costs.

tiny-batch producers who commence home-based businesses have far less overhead and can expand into commercial spaces later as the business grows.

Without expensive leases or staffing costs, you could realistically commence selling food online with just a few hundred dollars to cover ingredients, website and marketing costs, and packaging.

Tip: You may be able to claim some of your housing and utility costs at levy period if your living space doubles as your business space.

If it’s not feasible to run your business from home, consider the monthly expense of a commercial facility when calculating your recent business costs. Production facilities can be expensive, but many co-ops and incubators propose shared kitchens to entrepreneurs for a fraction of what you’d spend in a dedicated space.

8. worth your food products

Most entrepreneurs, regardless of the product they sell, will consent: pricing is challenging. Ultimately there’s no one pricing formula that will work for everyone. recognize your costs (both fixed and variable), and keep adjusting until you get it correct.

Daniel suggests forgoing boost at first to get your product in front of as many customers as feasible. “Over period, those expense reserves will arrive,” he says.

Bob has a different philosophy: if you depend in the worth of your product, worth it accordingly. He stands by McClure’s pricing. “We’re not the cheapest product out there,” he says, “so we have to compete on something that’s truly distinctive, otherwise you just become one of the other raw materials. And then it’s a race to the bottom.”

boost margins for food businesses also depend on many factors—what you’re selling or how and where you’re selling it, for example.

9. Set up inventory management

Grain Zero’s brand is built on products that contain natural ingredients and no preservatives. The shelf life on most of the business’s products is only five to six months. Jodi, therefore, keeps inventory tight, turning it over every one to two weeks.

While McClure’s Pickles have a longer shelf life, Bob wants to be sure customers get his product while they’re as fresh as feasible. For that rationale, the business’s inventory schedule errs on the side of producing too little of the product, rather than too much.

“It’s a juggling act, and we’re always getting better with forecasting our needs,” he says. “We have to make so much to justify a production run, while also ensuring there’s a sales channel or outlet and enough demand behind it to really make it work.”

Tips:

• Investigate the inventory tools available in the Shopify App Store—they’ll integrate with your store to assist you sell online.
• Use batch numbering or bar codes to keep inventory organized.
• Educate your throng on your inventory management best practices.

10. schedule for growth and product advancement

The McClures found achievement by focusing on their brand’s namesake product, perfecting and iterating on their grandmother’s recipe.

Low-uncertainty ideas came next. Tried and factual pickle flavors, for example, were applied to other products, like chips. By popular demand, their Bloody Mary mix followed.

Initially, the McClures expansion moves were made in response to customer feedback. Since then, however, product advancement has become more sophisticated, and the household relies on data to inform their next shift.

You have to make sure that there’s enough critical mass behind the concept before you receive that into a product launch.

Bob McClure, founder, McClure’s Pickles

While the household still loves engaging with customers and hearing their ideas, Bob warns to receive them with a grain of salt. “Not all ideas are like gold,” he says. “You have to make sure that there’s enough critical mass behind the concept before you receive that into a product launch.”

Expanding to food-adjacent products

Dominion City Brewing Co. sells its beer locally via its online store, but liquor laws prevent it from selling beyond Ontario’s borders. Fans of the brand who live outside the province can still shop for branded merchandise that they sell online, like glassware and clothing.

For your food brand, consider complementary items to extend your reach beyond your local trade, boost average order worth, and construct brand awareness:

Ideas:

• Branded merch like totes, t-shirts, and mugs
• Gift cards
• Complementary food products (declare, third-event crackers to upsell with your cheese)
• Relevant kitchen and serving tools like aprons, cutting boards, and tea towels
• Recipe books, ebooks, or subscription recipe content

When Wil Yeung hit his stride on YouTube, amassing thousands of followers on his vegan cooking channel, he was ready to monetize. Now, Wil sells cooking classes, e-cookbooks, and physical cookbooks through his own online store.

11. Set up shipping

We’ve spent a lot of period building resources to assist ecommerce entrepreneurs streamline their shipping processes. It is, after all, one of the most ordinary pain points for business owners.

And, no shock: shipping food carries additional challenges, especially when shipping outside of the country. “When you’re exporting food, there are a series of foods whose export is regulated under goods legislation,” says Glenford. “Those have their own rules.” Look into whether your product is subject to specific laws in the countries where you’re shipping to—and from.

Consider, as well, the potential restrictions on your product in its goal country. Technically, once products are in the shipping stream, they become the issue of the purchaser, but a impoverished customer service encounter can be impoverished for business. Mitigate the customer’s ultimate frustration by versing yourself on the laws where you ship.

For example, a cannabis-infused product may be legal in Canada where you produce, but may not be in many US states.

Alternatively, to avoid the red tape, you may consider working with a fulfillment service if you do most of your business across the border. “We found the expense of shipping person orders to the US was prohibitive,” says Jodi. “For that rationale, we ship bulk orders to the US where they are warehoused and shipped directly out to US customers.”

Packing and shipping fragile or perishable items

Many food items are fragile or are packaged in fragile packaging. As such, they may require extra shipping materials to propose enough protection from breakage. Factor in the extra expense of materials, shipping weight, and staffing period when setting your shipping and handling rates.

Products requiring refrigeration aren’t ideal for cross-border shipping, but Vegan Supply in Vancouver successfully ships its cold products nationally across Canada using cold packs and expedited shipping. You can also work with carriers that use refrigerated vehicles, or opt to only ship and deliver locally.

Order pickup and local delivery

If you’re selling an item that simply cannot be shipped by post (declare, cupcakes slathered in fluffy icing), consider alternatives that still allow you to sell food online. propose online options to customers who preorder your product: in-store pickup or local delivery.

At the commence of the pandemic, many retail stores pivoted to selling food online and set up contactless curbside pickup in lieu of in-store shopping. In response to these challenges, we’ve put together a comprehensive navigator to assist you set up these delivery methods for your store, too.

12. Choose your sales channels

The best way to commence a food business is to sell online through your own website. This way gives you packed control over your brand and ownership of your customer list. Reaching your target spectators is a bit trickier with an online store than with a marketplace, so you may aspiration to explore other sales channels as you develop.

Building a website

As with branding and packaging, the look and feel of your website is significant in helping influence the customer to buy a food product without tasting it first. In some cases, it may also be a visitor’s first impression of your brand.

Website content

Use product page copy to describe your product’s taste and texture in specific. Online product descriptions should include ingredient and allergy information in packed. Product photography is also significant here (we’ll talk about this in more specific later). Also consider including on your product page: customer reviews, user-generated content (UGC), and recipes that include the product.

To keep the product page uncluttered, invest period in a thorough FAQ page to respond additional questions about ingredients, dietary information, and production methods.

Even if your website isn’t supplying the bulk of your sales, it’s significant to nurture it as a tool to connect with customers and inform your narrative. “We’re in 5,000 stores worldwide,” says Bob, “but we still have a core throng of people that arrive to our website, purchase every year, like to view what we’re doing, and get connected to our brand, our narrative.”

Website building and design

Building a website from scratch may be a daunting concept, especially if your talents lie in cooking, not coding. excellent information: you don’t have to. With many ecommerce platforms, like Shopify, you can set up a site quickly, with no technical encounter essential.

Choose from a set of standard website templates in the Shopify Themes Store then customize it with your brand colors, logo, and copy. Some favorites include:

• Taste (free)
• Crave (free)
• Editions ($$)
• Canopy ($$$)
• Fresh ($$$)

Food photography

You can opt to DIY your photoshoots or hire a professional who has encounter with styling and lighting food. Food photography can be especially tricky due to capturing natural-looking color and glare from reflective surfaces (declare, package jars or glossy sauces).

For product pages, shoot food product photos against a tidy background. These should include packaging from several angles and close-up details of the product to display texture and color.

Lifestyle photography can be used on the homepage, in marketing campaigns, and in recipe content. Photos of your food products used in recipes or paired with other foods assist your customer view how your product can be used in their own cooking or entertaining.

Retail and wholesale

McClure’s initially grew its business through retail partnerships. achievement with that channel relied on seeing retailers as partners in the business and inviting them to worry about the business mission. “Some of our retail partners receive on more familial partnerships. We’ll work with them to do menu pairings or specific events that focus around our products and theirs,” says Bob.

Resources for finding retail partners:

• National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors (US)
• Directory of food and beverage trade expos (US/international)
• Faire (wholesale marketplace)

Other sales channels

Many brands expand their sales channels to reach even wider audiences when selling food. If you don’t schedule to open a retail store, there are other offline opportunities. Online marketplaces are another alternative for your business. You can sync your Amazon or Etsy shop with your Shopify store to make inventory across channels seamless.

13. trade your food business

Marketing is one of the most significant aspects of running a business. It will be one of the biggest learning curves for recent entrepreneurs when starting a food business. In the case of selling food online, connecting your customers to your narrative is extremely significant. If they can’t taste your food, you’ll require to appeal to their other senses.

Your online store is a great place to commence. Investing in search engine optimization (SEO) can assist your store rank in search engines for relevant terms your target spectators is searching for.

Content and social marketing

McClure’s dedicates a significant percentage of its site to throng—extra content, recipes (its own and customer generated), and prominent social calls to action. Social media is very significant to the brand. “That’s where our core customer goes,” says Bob. “We desire to be engaged with our throng because they’re the influencers. Word of mouth can receive your brand extremely, extremely far, as we’ve seen.”

Offline marketing

It’s significant to receive your food brand to the streets—and the mouths of your potential customers:

• Generate buzz locally by participating in farmers markets
• Run a pop-up shop
• associate with restaurants or other complementary brands to host a tasting occurrence
• Host a private dinner for influencers
• Periodically invite customers into your procedure (like brewery or factory tours)
• Launch your brand at a customer food and beverage expo

Other marketing ideas for food brands

Building a successful online food business relies on a consistent attempt to drive customers to your ecommerce store. As algorithms transformation and recent social platforms emerge, it’s especially significant to construct your own customer lists. Incentivize signing up to your email newsletter or creating a customer account. propose discounts or membership perks in trade for an email address.

Other marketing tactics to attract customers:

• Send product to food influencers
• associate with complementary brands to run a promo or develop a limited period co-branded product
• Incentivize reviews and user-generated content
• Run contests or giveaways on social media
• Sponsor an occurrence by providing your product as part of the catering offering
• make gated recipe content for subscribers only

No more half-baked business ideas

As direct-to-customer (DTC) food businesses become more popular, selling food online has never been easier.

Over a decade after its launch, McClure’s employs dozens of people who make and ship its product to thousands of consumers and retail partners around the globe. Though Bob can’t confidently declare he has it all figured out, his trip has been a rewarding one.

“Some challenges are large enough to shatter you,” he says, “but how you use them as a learning encounter in the upcoming is what really makes for a great ongoing achievement narrative. If we don’t discover from what we do as entrepreneurs, we don’t truly develop.”

characteristic illustration by Pete Ryan