AI am from Australia and love home baking- but I can't keep eating ALL the cupcakes I bake because I'll give myself a heart attack!

What do you have to do to be able to bake and sell cupcakes? And what sort of pricing would be suitable?

Thanks in advance! Claire x

You need to contact your local council first up to see if they will register your kitchen, if they do register home kitchens see if your kitchen is able to be registered.

Sit down with a spread sheet and take the time to put all your ingredients and recipes in to work out costs etc (it does take a while but once its done maintaining it is fairly simple) to see what you should be selling them at.

My basic buttercream swirl are $2.50 for example. Mud with ganache etc are obviously more since the ingredients cost more HTH.

AThanks [B]Bec005[/B] are you from Australia too? I will have to call up my country town shire and see what they're able to do for me- id like to start doing this ASAP. Thank you for your suggestions I have plenty of computer programs and are quite handy with them too so I'm sure that won't be too much of a hassle. I was thinking around $2.50 a cupcake too! Thanks so much Claire x

Council rules and regulations vary from one council to the next. You need to speak to yours first and foremost, if you intend to make your product at home. Without council approval ALL of the following are not an issue because you cannot bake and sell out of your home.

If you are renting you need to check your lease - most residential leases do not permit the running of a business from the premises, let alone a food business.

Other considerations before you put on your apron and start baking:

- registering you business name

- registering your food business with your state's food authority

- completing a Food Safety Supervisor/Food Handler's course (in NSW if you are a sole operator it needs to be the FSS)

- do market research - do you actually have a market to sell to? What makes your product different to the million other cupcakeries out there that are currently so fashionable?

- do your product research and development, including costing then calculating your profit margin etc

- find suppliers

- think about advertising/marketing and getting a website

- business plan - covers a lot of the above in terms of your planning

- your accounting methods and taxation status...depends on your volume of sales etc, so part of your business plan.

- pubic liability insurance for your customers, and workers comp if you are employing staff

There's a lot more, but in a nutshell: talk to your council first, because if you are not legal, you can't bake and sell food items out of your home. The next important thing after that is to get your required Food Safety certificate.

Hope this helps!

PS: If you are new here, spend a good few weeks trawling the forums for all the answers to all your questions - trust me, they are in there!

AWow thanks so much [B]Evoir[/B]! That helps a lot. I currently "manage" my father's small business so I have taken all of the descriptd counts into consideration- thank you! I will have to get in contact with my shire council before doing anything then!! I'm in VIC so things may be a bit different to NSW. Thanks again for your help, Claire xx