An Ultimate Guide to start a Food Business
Introduction:
Starting a food business is one of the most popular business industry across the globe. You can start a food business as a full service restaurant, limited service restaurant , Cafeteria, take out restaurant or order food online from your home kitchen.
Checklist to open a Food Business:
Follow the following checklist/steps before starting a business:
- You must do a proper research and homework to learn about the industry, to minimize the chances of loss.
- Choose the right location for your business.
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Analyze start up cost and availability of funds to start and manage.
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How to market a food business in a more effective way?
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Write a business plan or make a checklist to make sure that you have not overlooked or missed any information.
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Make a list of the reliable suppliers.
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Choose the right business structure to save taxes and protect your business from law suites.
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Registration to hire employees.
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Obtain Licenses to start a food business.
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Online Visibility
Comparison:
Start Food Business as a full service restaurant:
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Full service restaurant is a place to provide a service to your customers with a broad menu along with a table and servers. Food is normally consumed on the premises.
Start Food Business with a limited service restaurant:
- Normally pay before eating over the counter and the food may be eaten at the restaurant, take out or maybe delivered at the location.
Start Food Business with a Cafeteria:
- Food is served over the counter not serve on the table.
Receive Online Orders to Sell Food Business from your Home Kitchen:
You can prepare food from your home kitchen and receive orders online, and your customers can pay you through credit cards. It is one of the most popular ways to start a food business across the world with a limited budget or control expense.
Online Visibility:
How to Sell Food Online?
You can either create your own eCommerce website to sell food online and receive payment from your customers or there is a third party portal available to use and they usually keep their markup to use their online portals. Whether you sell food online or not, a website has become an important part of any business to check your experience, expertise and reputation in the business gain trust of your company.
Registration Requirements:
Following permits and registration may have to apply to open a restaurant or food business:
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Business Name Registration
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Sales tax license to collect sales tax from your customers
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Registration of unemployment and withholding numbers
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Employer Identification Number (EIN) to hire employees.
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Workers' compensation and disability insurances
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Health insurance for your employees
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Occupancy permit
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Food Processing License
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Food Protection Certification and
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Alcohol or Beverage Licenses
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Cigarette/Tobacco License
Business Structure:
You can choose one of the following business structures to start a food business
Sole Proprietorship | Corporation Formation | LLC Registration | General Partnership | Limited Partnerships
How to Market Food Business?
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If you are planning to reach out a specific community, you must be very careful to select the location. For example, if your targeted customers are chinees, you should open a restaurant in a Chinese area.
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You can offer affiliate programs to sell food. It is one of the most popular ways to market your products, and your affiliates will share your advertising burden.
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You can offer franchises to give an access to your customers to order food from the closest area of your branded food.
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Most popular search engines to get instant customers for your business are Google, Yahoo, Bing and GetConnected360.com.
Non US Residents
A Non US resident can Open a Company in the USA. You have following two choices.
- You can create a Member Managed LLC to handle your business affair, if you are literally present in the USA.
- You can can create a Manager, Managed LLC to handle your affair by your Appointed Manager, if you are not literally present in the USA.
Open a bank account and set up a merchant account to process debit and credit cards from your customers.
