Need to boucne out an idea

[French Foodie]

So due to how much I love to bake and make truffles and how much people love them, I started thinking about possibly trying to sell some of my confections (either to a local coffee shop or doing special orders for mother's day around my campus). I'm trying to figure out how practical this may be and what I should expect. It would be nice to make a little extra cash doing something that I love, but I am sure that there are many other things that I need to consider/look into. Can anyone offer me some thoughts/pointers or point me towards a few good books. I don't have any culinary school experience, but I am constantly pouring through cooking stuff. I almost spend as much time in cookbooks and the such as I do in my school books. Thanks for the help.

[ajoe]

As a start, and if you are in the U.S., you may want to check out your state government's web site for regulations regarding "Home Food Processors". Various states have regulations about foods produced in home kitchens and sold to the public.

[French Foodie]

Thanks. So I accidently posted this in the professional forum, since technically I'm no professional. Sorry about that.

[pgr555]

I have been baking for a bakery that buys from outside bakers - I am finding I can't really make any money because the numbers are too small. Unless you are selling to many places, I think you will find the same thing.

[French Foodie]

Thanks pgr555. I was thinking that that may be a significant problem. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

[tammylc]

I started my business in pretty much just this way - I decided to make and sell some truffles to coworkers, friends and neighbors for Mother's Day, and got orders for 300 pieces. I did a few more casual sales like that before I decided to get serious and worked out a deal for a commercial kitchen and got my license, etc.

So if you're willing to take the risk that what you're doing is technically illegal (but nothing that anyone is going to pay much attention to if you're selling to friends of friends, etc) it can be an ok way to test the waters and decide if it's something you want to do more of.

If you decide to give it a try, make sure you price yourself right. Which will probably be higher than you think. Don't forget to figure out what packaging you are going to use and include that in your pricing - packaging is surprisingly expensive - up to a third or half of total costs! Also, if you decide to go legit at some point, you don't want to shock your existing customers by having to change your prices to something you can actually make money off of. A lot of people who start a hobby business have that problem - they're happy as long as they are covering costs, but that sets false expectations on the value of the goods.