All right, so how to start a food delivery business from home? This podcast, we're going to cover this topic, which is actually gaining a lot of momentum. And there are a couple of states that have already begun to allow people to cook food, not just under the Cottage Food law, but with actual food from their homes and even use a delivery app to make it happen. And you want to know what states those are? All right, so welcome back to the Marketing Food Online podcast.
I've got exciting news about a couple of states where you can actually begin to create a home food delivery business right out of your home, but of course you have to have certain licensing and such. We're going to dive into some of these stipulations and regulations that you have, and then realize that many states are beginning to follow suit with this, and it's pretty exciting. The reason why I'm actually pretty happy is because a lot of my subscribers have asked me questions about this. So how do I start a small cooking business from home, or how do I create some type of food delivery business from home? Is it legal and how do you do it?
Can I use DoorDash or can I use Uber Eats? So, we're gon na dive into this and I'm super excited to bring you this information, and I highly suggest that in a couple of states where you may be, some states are beginning to contemplate this. They don't have it on the books just yet, but there are definitely some ways that you can kind of nudge some of these regulators and let them know that you are definitely interested in it and try to get the cities and counties where you particularly live to open the doors in the regulations to allow you to do this from home.
Of course, a couple of these states that I'm going to go over, I'm going to name those two states in a moment, do have certain criteria, and of course, there are specific licenses dedicated to it, and some basic core kind of food sanitation and food handling courses that you'll have to take prior to that, which only makes sense, and it kind of just lets you understand the process of doing cooked foods. Now, traditionally under cottage food laws, you were allowed to make certain products and certain items, but it's not exactly time-sensitive or temperature-sensitive items that you still can't do.
What's classified as potentially hazardous food products, which would be items that have to be kept at certain temperatures or within a certain timeframe? So, that's one of the limitations that most states still have in place for their cottage food businesses. But with that being said, these two particular states have begun to open the doors and opportunities and hopefully set a precedent and an example for other states to follow because, to be honest with you, I think all of you who are watching my videos are certainly capable of handling some type of cooking process outside of baked goods and cookies, you know, the traditional cottage food items. I think many of you, if not all of you, have the capacity to do this.
It's just that the states need to create some type of regulations within their state just to say, "Look, take a course, have a certain license, have a certain inspection, but go ahead and start creating some money." Because what happened last year is that there were a lot of chefs and a lot of entrepreneurs who own restaurants that were closed, or a lot of chefs who may have lost their jobs, but they love to cook; they have a passion for it. So why not allow them to tap into their existing resources, such as their own kitchen and equipment, and basically make a living doing what they love?
If they don't have a restaurant that's open or if they lost their permanent job as a chef, a cook, or a sous chef, whatever it may be, or even a pastry chef, whatever that may be, as well. But you should allow people to actually operate businesses, give them a little bit of guidance, and regulate them slightly. Let them, you know, have an inspection here, get a license to open their business, but just let them do what they're going to do. So, there's a great article that I came across. I was doing a little bit of research on this and I found that in California and Utah, Utah actually just created an unprecedented law. Absolutely amazing. I'm so glad that they did this.
It's fantastic for people in Utah. Is that this law allows them to actually create a restaurant in a sense out of their kitchen? Now, when I say restaurant, you're not going to go there and sit down and eat, but allow them to create cooked foods, meals, lunches, actual food, not just baked goods and trail mixes and things, but actually cooked food. and even tap into a local delivery app that allows people within a certain radius to have the food delivered. That is super exciting for people who've asked that question about how to start a delivery or a food delivery business from their home.
This is something that's trickling into other states. So if your state is obviously not one of those two, you definitely want to kind of knock on the door in the sense of local commissioners and lawmakers and regulators within the cities and counties where you live and say, "Look, Utah is already doing this." Can you guys get into doing this? Can you guys create some laws to allow us in our community to do the same thing? Now with that being said, when you are actually doing this outside of California, I believe it has to be a license B. There are two different types of licenses.
From my understanding, in California, they allow you to do it under license B, which is a little more expensive to get that particular license, but what it does allow you to do is open the door to selling products even to restaurants or local third parties or other retailers, even out of your home. Utah is much different in that it allows you to literally create food products and then tap into the existing app. Believe it or not, it's actually DoorDash. DoorDash is now tapped into another app that they have actually included, which gives them a localized delivery radius. And I think it's three to five miles from the actual home where it is. So if I've read that correctly, it was about three to five miles. But again, this is a stepping stone, and this is something that should gain momentum.
And if you are looking to do this out of your own home but you don't live in Utah or California, you need to start asking the lawmakers in your area to kind of think about this because they might create some type of ordinance and such. Now let me double check really quickly. I know that Utah has this and one of the stipulations is that I actually have this up here on my laptop. So one of the stipulations for this was that you needed to have inspections, if I'm not mistaken. So what they're going to do is allow and correct me if I'm wrong. Okay, yeah. So, of course, you need to make sure that you're a business. You need to have a business license to make sure that you actually cover the liability factor. Make sure that you create either an LLC or some type of corporation.
Get yourself some food business insurance. This is normally not required in most states under the cottage food laws. But in order for you to be protected, you need to have an insurance policy for the food business you're operating. If you're doing it from your home and someone happens to get ill or sick, or there's a piece of plastic, glass, or something in the food, you're going to be responsible for that. So don't think that this is kind of a hobby where you're just going to start producing dinners, lunches, and breakfasts out of your house and then deliver them with no type of responsibility.
You are fully responsible for what goes on there. But, once again, this is a great stepping stone for those looking to start something like this, and the idea of opening the door to other types of food products other than baked goods and those covered by Cottage Food Law makes sense.So if you're looking to create homemade food and you want to sell it online, the other thing is that many cottage food laws in almost every state, of course, allow you to create certain food products, as we have mentioned in some of my other videos. But the other thing was that you were allowed to literally sell them online, but the only catch was that you would need to deliver them in person. Several states allow you to do this. You can create an online presence.
You can have a website of some sort. And then what you do is, once the order is taken, you need to deliver it in person. Now the trick to that would be that it's still limiting the area. If you have a website, you're going to be seen in every state, obviously, because you're online. So you need to stipulate that and make sure that you put that on the site that if, let's just say, you're in Georgia and you were able to do it online and you were able to deliver the product, there's a certain number of radius or miles within that area. Okay, you don't want to be driving on the other side of your state to deliver a food product.
The same thing goes with this idea of starting a food delivery business from home: there has to be a set radius. If you're making a meal, you're obviously not going to ship it to another state. You're obviously not going to have the delivery guy if it happens to be DoorDash or another app that has a touch, that's basically connected with DoorDash. That app itself will give you a certain mile radius that you want to stay within, okay? But this is a great way to at least get started. Or if you're a chef that's out of work, create a side business, or even a business to bring in money to pay your bills and survive. So this idea is a great one, and California and Utah are the two states that are kind of frontiering this idea of allowing people to cook foods directly from their homes, aside from the actual cottage food laws, which, of course, are in place in every state. Now, the only state I know is New Jersey.
I believe they don't have a specific cottage food law on the books just yet, but everywhere else in between, you've got quite a few states that allow you to produce certain things. Some of them will require business licenses, some of them will not. Some of them will require a food handler's card, and some of them will not. So the best way to check this really quickly is I know we're doing this podcast but I'm sure we're going to upload this one like we have been. We're going to put this on YouTube too. Okay, So this will be up on YouTube as well, but in the description below, I'll give you some links for cottage food resources, but you can simply go to, if you're looking for your state in particular, check our channel because I do have Cottage Food Law in several, quite a few states, almost all the states. We're going to have all of them up soon, but you go to Google, type in the words "Cottage Food Law" and then your state's name, and then that is a way to get the resource directly to the state website.
"License required for food delivery business"
Go to the state website that is set up. And then you can find out specifically what types of foods you can make. So, this is really an exciting thing, and I just wanted to do a podcast really quickly about it to let you know that the ball is rolling forward in a couple of states already. And this is some really big news because, hopefully, it'll trickle down into other states. I know Florida just increased their cottage food law earnings every year. I think it's $250,000, which is up, I believe, from $50,000. So a lot of states are increasing this because they're seeing that there are a lot of people who are obviously out of work who can create home-based food businesses and make a living cooking and making foods from home.
"How to Start an Online Food Business From Home"
I think it's a great idea and every state should do it because it would also increase the economy and help the state as a whole. You charge them taxes and you operate yourself like you were at a cafe or a restaurant or any type of bistro. You run the same thing. But letting people do it from home, I think, is a great idea. So if you're excited about this or if you've got questions about the idea of starting a delivery business from home with food, definitely let me know down below in the comments and I'll try to get to you guys' questions as soon as I can. So I'll see you on our next podcast.