Interactive lesson

Hygiene and rules for selling food, step by step

Interactive lesson: once food leaves your gate, you answer for it — product groups, premises, hygiene, the cold chain, batches, labels and inspection.

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This lesson is general guidance, not professional training. Local regulations and expert advice always take precedence. Read our disclaimer.

The whole lesson as text

1. Who answers for the food

While the family eats its own eggs, the risk stays in the family. When a jar goes to a neighbour or the market, you are a food business.

Food leaves the gate — When a jar or a box of eggs goes to a neighbour, a colleague or the market, you become a food business.
Producer responsibility — The person who produces and sells the food answers for its safety first, not the inspector. Even in small quantities.
Traceability — You know who supplied your raw materials and, when selling to businesses, whom you sold to: one step back and one step forward.
Prevention and questions — Hazards are prevented during production, not discovered at the end. Before your first sale, ask the relevant authority where you live.

Why: You answer for the health of people you may never have met. The UK and Ireland build on EU food law; the US and Canada have their own systems, with much of the detail set by each state or province. The details differ and change.

Before you go to the authorities, call an adviser or a producers' association (beekeepers, cheesemakers). They know which authority covers your product and often have a guide to good hygiene practice.
Here are principles and questions, not sections of law. Check with the relevant authority where you live before your first sale.

2. Product groups

Rules differ more by type of product than by size of homestead.

Fresh vegetables and fruit — Hygiene of primary production. Direct sale of small quantities is usually the simplest; US produce safety rules mostly exempt small farms.
Eggs, honey, milk — Special rules for each: egg marking and flock registration, hive registration and honey labelling, herd health and chilling of milk.
Processing needs registration — Preserves, chutney, jam, bread: registered premises or cottage food rules, a label, a food safety plan. Cheese and cured meat: registered or approved premises.
Small quantities and meat — What counts as "small" or "low-risk" is decided locally. Meat from home slaughter is for the household only: it isn't sold or given away outside the household.

Why: Fresh vegetables and fruit are simplest. Eggs, honey and milk have special rules, processing usually needs registered premises or a cottage food permit, and meat for sale comes from a licensed or inspected slaughterhouse.

Honey with nuts or fruit added is no longer "honey" but a honey product.
The answer to "may I sell 30 eggs a week to neighbours?" is in your local rules, not in a general guide.