Selling homemade products

[Dolly]

I just wanted to find out if one would get into trouble with the law if one sells homemade products. For axample i get a recipe from somewhere, lets say from the internet, try and waaala i works, i start producing in bulk and sell, or maybe there are other things i have to take into consideration like food standard ect

[roryf]

Fine to start small without any certification,as you get bigger the Health Dept. will start visiting and you will need Certificate of Acceptability from your Local Health Dept. I am pretty sure HACCP will become the minimum standard in all SA food factories.If you start selling to the retailers expect to be audited by them.

We currently have two food standards being the SANS 10049 an SANS 10330.I do not feel that the Government enforces these standards, as some of the factories that I have visited are scary!There are plenty more standards/accreditations like ISO 22000,BRC etc.

Start without the papers and when your business takes off then change accordingly.

Good luck!

[Dave A]

As Rory indicates, this is probably going to be driven by where you propose to sell your goods.

In the days when my wife used to produce food for a home industries shop here in Durban, she had to have her kitchen inspected by the Durban City Health Department to comply with local municipal by-laws (which were enforced by the shop BTW. No letter from City Health - no goods accepted).

It wasn't too onerous as I recall - the minimum standards required by the health inspector were entirely reasonable. But it was many years ago - things may have got stickier since.

However, if you're thinking of selling your goods to an outlet applying HACCP principles, you could be in for quite a rude awakening.