I’ve been supporting my family with home-based food businesses for over fifteen years and I’ve helped a lot of people start their own food business from home.
One of the most common questions that I hear is “What food is easy to sell?”.
So let’s dig in to the answer.
What Makes A Food Easy To Sell?
There are three factors that make a food easy to sell.
- Little Regulation
- Easy To Make & Package
- Popular Food
Most of these are pretty explanatory, but let’s take quick look at each.
Food With Little Regulation
Any food that has to be maintained at temperature for food safety is highly regulated and therefore much harder to make and sell.
Foods that are allowed under Cottage Food Laws are low food-safety risk products and are going to be much easier for you to sell.
If you want a better understanding of what Cottage Food Laws are and a list of Cottage Food Business Ideas, you can find my article about such things here…but you may want to come back to this link after you finish this article.
Food That Is Easy To Make And Package
If your new home-based food business is offering a product that is labor-intensive to make or package, it’s not going to be easy work.
If it’s not easy work, its not ever going to feel like an easy sale.
Popular Food With Wide Appeal
If the food that your new business is offering is such a niche product that only one-in-ten people are going to be even interested in, finding those potential customers is going to be harder.
On the other hand, if your food product is something that nine-in-ten people find interesting, it just got a lot easier to sell.
List Of Easy Foods To Sale From Home
#1 Cookies
If your state has Cottage Food Laws, they probably allow cookies to be made in your home kitchen without regulation.
Cookies are easy to make and can be packaged as plainly or fancily as you fancy.
Everyone loves cookies!
When you are considering selling cookies, don’t just think about selling them to people on the street. At the very least, cookies sell great at the Farmers Market!
But what about selling to businesses? This home-based business might become much more profitable if you focus on selling cookies to businesses.
What if you offer fresh cookies to businesses for break-room treats?
Cookies in fancy boxes as holiday thank you gifts for customers?
Cookies for big meetings and retreats?
Think outside of the box and sell some cookies!
#2 Hard Candy
If your state has Cottage Food Laws, it’s very likely that hard candy is allowed to be prepared in your home kitchen without regulation.
Making hard candy is a little complex, but for those who have mastered the art, it seems quite easy. Packaging can be as simple as a brown paper bag or as fancy as you want to make it.
Everyone loves candy!
Once again, this is a home-based food business idea that can be offered to the general public and at the local Farmer’s Market, but it can also be a great product to offer to local businesses.
#3 Pizza Crusts
People are beginning to cook more at home, and home-made pizza is always a big hit with a young family.
Making home-made pizza is so simple for a family…expect for making the pizza dough and baking it.
So what if you just offer pizza dough rounds at the local Farmer’s Market? You’ll make flavor varieties and send them home with happy families to use for dinner that night or to freeze for their next pizza night.
Being a baked good, it’s probably allowed under Food Cottage Laws if your state has them.
#4 Keto Bread
The Ketogenic Diet is crazy popular because the keto diet works. It’s an easy diet to follow, except for giving up bread.
There are some pretty good keto-friendly bread recipes out there, but most people don’t bake. If you could offer a line of keto-friendly breads, pizza crusts, etc, you’d be a very popular baker.
#5 Smoked Spices
People who love to cook also love to have a secret ingredient. What if you could provide that secret ingredient?
Spices are often covered under Food Cottage Laws, but selling spices or spice blends is not easy. However, if you offer a spice that is not available at the grocery store, it becomes much easier to sell.
There is a little spice shop in our town that I only visit to get smoked spices and flavored vinegar. They offer tons of other spices and spice mixes, but I’ve seldom purchased any of those.
#6 Flavored Vinegar
If your state will allow you to flavor and sell vinegar, this one might be a winner. It’s easy to make, shelf-stable because it’s vinegar, and unique.
However, it’s not going to be as easy to sell as the other items on this list.
Non-Home-Based Foods That Are Easy To Sell
I kept my list to foods you could sell from a home-based food business. However, if you are going to be using a commercial kitchen, then the sky is the limit.
A commercial kitchen can come in many forms.
We have one in our home and we use it to run our Prepared Meal Delivery Business.
You could also rent a commercial kitchen from someone else.
Or you could purchase a mobile commercial kitchen in the form of a food truck.
With a commercial kitchen, your selections of food to offer in your new food business becomes nearly limitless.
~Stacey
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