You’ve got your grandmother’s recipe for her famous tomato sauce and think the world needs to try it. The only logical conclusion is to jar it and sell it online.
Sounds like it should be simple, but selling homemade food can be complicated. Once you do have all your details figured out, it can be quite lucrative as either a side business or something that you take the full time.
If you are interested in selling food online, then read on and see what steps you need to take to get started.
1 – Know your local laws
There are a lot of regulations about food safety and every local jurisdiction is going to be different. In some places, you can cook and process the food in a home kitchen for sale. While in others you are only allowed to sell food online if you process it in a professional facility.
Don’t worry, however. If you are determined to make this work then there is a way to do it. It’s just that some places will be more complicated than others to get started.
Also, if you plan to distribute the food yourself, or hire a courier that specializes in perishable foods like California Courier Services then this will also play a part in how you’ll need to be regulated.
2 – Find the right niche
People have a lot of choices when it comes to food products as there are new ones arriving on the market every day.
It can be tough to stand out in this market if you pick a product that is a bit too broad. The tomato sauce example in the introduction is a good example. That would be hard to market. If you want to make a tomato sauce, then it has to stand out by using some different ingredients.
In other words, it has to be a specific niche that people are searching for but having a hard time finding.
3 – Market it
You may have the best product on the market, but if nobody knows about it, then it won’t matter just how good it is.
Getting the word out is one of the most important parts of this business. The best way forward is to have your ideal customer find you instead of vice versa. Create an Instagram account as this is the best way to promote food-based businesses. Then, have a Youtube channel that features your product prominently.
Lastly, have a blog and capture emails (newsletter subscribers) on the website where you plan to see your product. A blog can use the content for SEO to bring in organic traffic from the search engines. Then, have a way to collect emails from people visiting your site so if they aren’t ready to purchase when they visit, you can market to them in the future.
4 – Make appealing packaging
Since your product is not going to be sitting on a shelf, the branding doesn’t have to be eye-catching.
But, if you make an attractive label with consistent branding then it will help with awareness about your product. Make sure that the logo and color scheme is recognizable so when people see your social media posts, they will know it’s about your product.
