Setting Up A Food Business – Part One

by Miranda Ballard on May 9, 2010

Miranda Ballard from Muddy Boots Foods Limited discusses her experiences of setting up - great advice for anyone wanting to start their own food business.

When we started Muddy Boots in December 2008, we really had no idea which regulations we needed, which food groups and organisations were best to join, which was the best type of bank account, where on earth to start with Food Hygiene etc… So I hope this might be a handy checklist for anyone starting their own company.

Food Hygiene Certificate
This was much more straightforward than we thought. There are lots of registered and authentic websites that offer the courses online and they post you your certificate. Here are two:

http://www.food-certificate.co.uk/

http://www.food-hygiene-certificate.co.uk/

Environmental Health
Again, no way near the headache that we imagined it would be. We were extremely lucky to have one of the most fantastically supportive and helpful EHOs, Mick Coates (from Malvern Hills District Council). If you’re in this area and you get him, you’re in luck. He is so patient, kind and helpful.

My biggest tip to anyone starting from home or installing a kitchen anywhere, is to meet your EHO before you build or buy anything. It is surely a simple system when you say, “what do I need to do” rather than, “I’ve built this, does it pass?”. We built a kitchen from second-hand catering equipment and the best possible value cladding, utensils etc and Mick said we were one of the quickest ever to have passed (and we got four stars too!). Of course, starting a business is always going to be on a budget but working with your EHO really helps you save on things you don’t need and to only invest in the things you do.

It’s not rocket science: they know exactly what you need to do to meet the standards and you simply do it. The only people who have trouble with the EHOs are the ones that fly on ahead without consulting them and then complain when EH needs them to correct something, after money has been spent on it.

Start with your EHO and you can’t go wrong. Mick came out to the farm at 9pm the Friday evening before Christmas just because he knew that we really wanted to go to our first farmers’ market the next day and he was so busy already that week so he fitted us in when he could – brilliant!

Just telephone your council offices and ask to speak to Environmental Health and you’ve begun.

Trading Standards
This is the other one to cover before you even think about packaging or selling anything and again, it’s not complicated and they aren’t there to make life difficult for you.

We were so lucky with our Trading Standards office as well. Sally Harber and Sharon Newbury were wonderfully helpful and really took us through everything we needed to know.

We were worried that we were wasting their time by wanting to meet them so early on (our second week of business) or that they’d think that we were too clueless to be running the company because there was so much we didn’t know… quite the opposite. Just like the EHO, it is a million times better to start with these organisations right at the beginning because they really don’t mind talking you through it all step by step and then you have all the information you need before you start making decisions (decisions which are often very expensive).

Five months later, when we were having our first packaging designed and printed, we just started up the emails again, sending them the proofs and checking everything was okay. Once the final mock-ups had been designed, we called Sally and Sharan at 2pm and said, “The designers said that we could have the actual sleeves by the weekend if we could get them signed off by 3pm and returned to them and we really really would love to have the sleeves this weekend because we’re doing a food show…” – cheeky wasn’t it? But they were brilliant and got straight to it and had them back to us, signed off, with even five minutes to spare and we had our sleeves by that weekend!

Registering The Company
There’s lots of help online about whether you should be a Limited Company or a Sole Trader.

Go to the Companies House website (http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/)

Or other business sites like: http://www.bytestart.co.uk/content/19/19_1/limited-company-or-sole-t.shtml

We’re a limited company and we registered our company through one of the website services like this one: http://www.company-wizard.co.uk/eiw/company-formation.aspx

There are all sorts of ones so have a shop around for the best value (check that they send your certificate and don’t have any extra added costs at the end – most are very straightforward though).

Business Link
Forgive me for saying this but we haven’t found Business Link very helpful at all. You might though so just go to their website and contact your Business Link office and they will come out to meet you and tell you how they can help.

Coming Soon…

• Part Two: Food Organisations, Farmers’ Markets, Design and Branding
• Part Three: Accounting, Staff, Marketing, Food Shows,
• Part Four: Selling Food Online, Trade Shows and Wholesale