Do I need to register to sell food from home?

What's required and what isn't

Step-by-step

1

Register at least 28 days before you trade

This is the legal requirement and it's genuinely easy. Find your local council's food business registration form online, fill it in, submit. It's free, it cannot be refused, and the 28-day window exists so the council can log you and assess your risk level. Operating without registering is a criminal offence under food law — which is a startling amount of downside for skipping a free form.

2

Understand what registration doesn't require

Registration doesn't mean an inspector approves your kitchen before you start, and it doesn't require a separate commercial kitchen. You can use your ordinary domestic kitchen. It also isn't a licence — there's no application to pass or fail. Two things that do sometimes catch people: if you're producing certain products of animal origin you may need approval rather than registration, and if you rent, check your tenancy.

3

Get trained, even though a certificate isn't mandatory

Food law requires that food handlers are supervised and instructed or trained in food hygiene to a level appropriate to their work. It doesn't specify a certificate. In practice a Level 2 Food Safety and Hygiene course is the standard answer, costs very little online, takes a few hours, and is what an inspector will expect to see evidence of. Get it before your inspection rather than after.

4

Put a written food safety management system in place

You must have a documented system based on HACCP principles. For a small home business the Food Standards Agency's Safer Food, Better Business pack is designed exactly for this and is free — it walks you through the required records with a diary you fill in. Inspectors ask to see it, and having it completed properly is one of the biggest single influences on your hygiene rating.

5

Get allergens right — this is the highest-stakes part

You must be able to tell customers accurately about the 14 regulated allergens in anything you sell. For food you make and sell directly, that information can be given verbally provided a clear notice tells customers to ask. Prepacked-for-direct-sale food needs full ingredient labelling with allergens emphasised. Keep ingredient labels from everything you buy — recipe records are what let you answer confidently, and getting this wrong is how food businesses cause real harm.

6

Prepare for the inspection and understand the rating

An environmental health officer will visit, usually unannounced, after you start trading. They look at hygiene and food handling, the condition of your kitchen, and — carrying the most weight — your confidence and records around food safety management. You'll get a rating from 0 to 5, published on the FSA website in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Ratings are heavily influenced by paperwork, so a spotless kitchen with no records scores worse than people expect.

7

Handle the domestic-kitchen practicalities

You don't need a separate kitchen, but you do need to manage the risks of a shared one: pets kept out during production, separate storage for business ingredients, a probe thermometer, a fridge thermometer with logged temperatures, and thought about cross-contamination if anyone in the house has allergies. A dedicated shelf and a labelled storage box costs almost nothing and reads well at inspection.

8

Tell your insurer, and consider product liability cover

Public liability insurance isn't legally required but is strongly advisable, and product liability cover specifically matters when you're selling food someone will eat. Also tell your home insurer you're running a food business from the property — undisclosed business use is a common reason for a claim being refused. If you sell at markets or fairs, organisers will usually ask for proof of both registration and insurance.

Common questions