Benefits of A Home-Based Food Business

I may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post.

My wife and I have worked full-time from home running our various food businesses for over 15 years. There are many advantages to running a home-based food business, and we’ll discuss the biggest benefits today.

List of Benefits Of Running A Home Based Food Business

#1 – Flexible Work Hours

I love that running a food business from home provides us with nearly unlimited flexibility in our work hours.

For example, if the kids have some kind of competition after school today…no problem. We can just get up a little earlier or work a little later to get the work done.

Sometimes I even take a day off in the middle of the week to go fishing, knowing that I can make up my work on Saturday morning while the kids are still asleep.

I covet flexibility in my life, so this is my favorite advantage to running a home based business.

#2 – More Work Time With Less Commute Time

I used to work outside the house, and I would spend nearly half an hour in the car before my ‘work’ really started.

Now with fresh coffee in my favorite mug, I just walk downstairs and either go to work in the commercial kitchen or sit at my desk to work on websites.

That’s a pretty sweet commute that sames me nearly an hour of productive (or relaxed) time every work day.

#3 – Everyday Can Be Casual Friday

Whether I’m working on food blogs or cooking meals for our Prepared Meals Delivery Business, I can dress casually most days.

If I’m meeting with clients, I’ll dress up, but other days its all about comfort.

#4 – Lower Overhead Costs

At one point, Angela (my wife) and I, ran a Personal Chef Business from our home. As our kids got bigger, we didn’t want to cook in clients homes anymore so we looked to move to a Prepared Meal Business Model.

We looked at retail space with a kitchen, but found that we could pay the mortgage on a much larger and nicer home for less than the rent of that commercial space.

So instead of renting space, we puchased our home in the country and installed a bare-bones commercial kitchen in the walkout basement. Now instead of paying rent, we pay our mortgage for about half of what we would have paid for that retail / kitchen space we looked at.

Our home-based food business saves us at least $12,000 dollars a year in rent. That’s a HUGE advantage.

#5 – Save On Personal Expenses

Not only do we save money on rent, we save on a long list of other items.

Gas For The Car
Automotive Wear & Tear
Clothes (fewer office cloths)
Lunch (eating in instead of fast food)
Medical Expenses (eating home cooked food instead of fast food)

I guess with a few hours I could get a number for all of these savings, but even with out investing that time I know it’s substantial.

Just with gas and lunch, I’m saving at least $10 a day. If I would be driving to an office & lunch out five days a week, that gives us a savings of $2,500 a year from working from home!

If we add it all together, by choosing to run my food-businesses from my own home I’m saving an additional $5k plus every year! Wow.

#6 – Eat Better

When I worked outside of my home, I also ate outside of my home.

For me that translated into either cheap fast food or expensive and slow restaurant food. I choose cheep to often, and with that I was 45 pounds heavier than I am now.

Good food is the foundation of a good life, and by eating lunch at home I’m healthier and happier than I was when I lived on fast food.

#7 – Income Tax Advantages

I’m not a tax professional, so I’m not going to give you any tax advice. However, you should really seek the guidance of your tax professional.

In my personal experience, our home based food business takes up about 25% of our house (we have a large commercial kitchen in our home that we run our meal delivery business out of) and because of that 25% of most of my house expenses are considered business expenses.

That adds up to a significant deduction from our income.

Talk to your tax professional to see how a home-based business will impact your income taxes. I bet you are going to love what you learn.

#8 – Easier Start Up Of New Business Ideas

There are lots of home-based food business ideas that you might want to try your hand at, and starting up a new business from home is a lot easier than starting one up in rented space.

With a home based business, you can expand and contract your business within the limits of your whole home, not just within the walls of a rented office space.

And that expansion and contraction can be done at no additional cost to you.

This empowers you to try new businesses with less risk and no long term commitments.

Conclusion About The Advantages Of A Home Based Food Business

There are countless advantages to running a food business from the comfort of your own home.

These advantages can be broken down into two general categories, quality of life and quality of income. For me, I will always choose to have a high quality life and income.

After over fifteen years of running my businesses from home, I honestly would not choose to work and live any other way.

~Stacey