Commercial Kitchen Use Considered Home-Based?
Business By HannahsMomi Updated 22 Jan 2012 , 4:37pm by smm99
I'm full of questions today! I'm going to be renting a commercial kitchen space,and I was just wondering...is that still considered a home-based business or not? I would be doing all office work out of the home...
If you are operating out of a licensed commercial kitchen you are typically not subject to the limitations imposed on home-based food service businesses, but you should verify this with your county/state govt.
Doing non food-related office work at home shouldn't change anything. That's actually how we ran our business in CA (which does not allow home-based bakeries)...anything we sold was baked in our commercial kitchen, but all the recipe R&D and backoffice work (advertising, accounting, customer service, etc) was done at our home.
In my province (Alberta), I am considered a home-based business even though my baking is done is a commercial kitchen at another location. This is because my business address is my home address, not the commercial kitchen. So, I have to abide by home-based business rules, which again in Alberta, include no signage at my home, no suppliers or couriers or customers to my home, etc. Interesting how these things work, hey?
Thanks so much to both of you for your input. There are just so many little details to figure out when starting a business...many more than I thought there would be!
I researched this question when I wrote Start & Run a Home-Based Food Business. There is no absolute answer, but the majority of states within the US and across most of Canada consider that when the business end is operated from ones' home, regardless of where meetings/operations/etc take place, it is a home-based business. So, for instance, if an event planning business, or an architect, or lawyer, or anyone with a consulting business, does not have an office space somewhere outside the home, then all of these businesses are technically home-based businesses.
I researched this question when I wrote Start & Run a Home-Based Food Business. There is no absolute answer, but the majority of states within the US and across most of Canada consider that when the business end is operated from ones' home, regardless of where meetings/operations/etc take place, it is a home-based business. So, for instance, if an event planning business, or an architect, or lawyer, or anyone with a consulting business, does not have an office space somewhere outside the home, then all of these businesses are technically home-based businesses.
That might be true according to the licensing departments of municipal governments, but county and state health/ag depts are usually only concerned with where the food is made.
smm99's post about rules in Alberta seems to involve mostly municipal zoning issues like signage and street noise as opposed to health dept rules.
That might be true according to the licensing departments of municipal governments, but county and state health/ag depts are usually only concerned with where the food is made.
smm99's post about rules in Alberta seems to involve mostly municipal zoning issues like signage and street noise as opposed to health dept rules.
Alberta Health Services doesn't make the distinction between home-based businesses or otherwise; the only address they are concerned with is the location where food is prepared, as jason_kraft said. They don't concern themselves with business licensing; they just do health inspections and then pass on the information to the municipality for business licensing (or not, if they find the business unfit from a health standpoint). Where I live, it is the municipality that issues business licenses, and who considers me home-based, regardless of where the baking occurs. Hope that helps clear up my previous post.
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