Registering as a Food Business with Your Local Council

Who needs to register?

Anyone who handles, prepares, stores, distributes, or sells food as a business must register. "Food business" has a very broad definition under food law. It includes:

• Market stall operators selling hot or cold food.
• Home bakers selling cakes, biscuits, or baked goods at craft fairs.
• Jam, chutney, and preserve makers.
• Anyone selling food online or through social media.
• Mobile catering vans and food trucks.

You do not need to be registered with Companies House or HMRC to count as a food business under food law. If you sell food regularly, even once a month at a local craft fair, you should register.

The only general exemption is for individuals preparing food occasionally and on a small scale for charity events, church fetes, or school fundraisers. One-off events typically do not require registration. If you are unsure, contact your local council's environmental health team: they would rather answer a question than discover an unregistered food business.

How to register

Registration is done through your local authority, the council where your food business is based. "Based" means where you prepare, store, or keep your food and equipment. For most craft fair food vendors, this is your home address.

You can register online through GOV.UK's food business registration service, or by contacting your local council's environmental health department directly.

You will need to provide:

• Your name and business name (if you have one).
• The address where food activities take place.
• The type of food business, e.g. "market stall: bakery products" or "mobile trader: preserves".
• The date you intend to start trading.

Important: you only register with one council, the one where your base of operations is. You do NOT need to register separately with every council area where you trade. If you bake in Norwich and sell at fairs across Norfolk, you register with Norwich City Council only.

What happens after you register

Your details are added to the local food premises register. An environmental health officer will arrange to inspect your premises (which may be your home kitchen) to check food safety and hygiene compliance.

The timing of the first inspection varies by council. Some visit within a few weeks, others may take longer. Do not wait for the inspection before you start trading; you are legally allowed to trade once you have registered (after the 28-day period), regardless of whether the inspection has happened yet.

After the inspection, your premises will receive a Food Hygiene Rating, the 0-to-5 score that is published on the Food Standards Agency's website. In Wales and Northern Ireland, you must display this rating at your stall. In England, display is voluntary but strongly encouraged. Many craft fair and market organisers set a minimum hygiene rating (typically 3 or above) as a condition of booking, so a good score is worth working towards.

Your first inspection

The inspection is not as daunting as it sounds. Environmental health officers are generally helpful and want to support small food businesses, not catch them out. They will look at three main areas:

• Hygienic food handling: how food is prepared, cooked, stored, and transported.
• Physical condition of your premises: cleanliness, layout, facilities (including handwashing), and storage.
• Food safety management: whether you have documented procedures for keeping food safe.

For a home kitchen, inspectors understand you are working in a domestic setting. They will assess whether your working practices are safe and hygienic, not whether you have a commercial kitchen. If you mention that you sell at craft fairs and markets, the inspector may also ask how you transport food safely to events and maintain temperature control on your stall.

Top tip: have a basic food safety management system written down before the inspection. The FSA's "Safer Food, Better Business" pack is a free template designed for small businesses and is exactly what inspectors expect to see.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Not registering at all: many home bakers assume they are too small to count. If you sell food regularly, even just at monthly craft fairs, you need to register.
• Registering too late: the 28-day requirement is a legal deadline. Do not leave it until the week before your first event.
• Registering in the wrong place: register where you prepare and store food, not where you sell it.
• Not having a food safety management system: even a simple written document showing you understand the key risks (temperature control, cross-contamination, allergens) goes a long way.
• Forgetting about allergens: regardless of whether Natasha's Law labelling applies to your products, you must be able to provide allergen information to customers.
• Not keeping records: temperature logs, supplier receipts, and cleaning records all demonstrate compliance.