How to start a food business in the UK: the practical first steps

Most guides to starting a UK food business lead with branding and social media. Skip that for now. Get these six things right first, and everything after them is easier.

1. Register with your local council

You need to register as a food business at least 28 days before you start trading, with the environmental health team at your local council. It's free, and it's a legal requirement, not a nice-to-have.

2. Register as a sole trader (or set up a limited company)

Most people starting out register as a sole trader with HMRC, which gets you a UTR (Unique Taxpayer Reference) for self-assessment tax returns. If you're planning to bring on investors or want liability protection from day one, a limited company might suit better, but sole trader is the simpler starting point for most, and it's easy to set up a Ltd company once you're making the big money.

3. Get public liability insurance

This is the one people skip because it feels optional until the day it isn't. If someone has an allergic reaction, gets food poisoning, or a market stall customer trips over your gazebo, public liability insurance is what stands between you and a claim that could end the business overnight. Most markets and events won't let you trade without it, and it's cheap for a small operation, often less than a month of ingredients. Sort it before your first sale, not after your first complaint.

4. Open a separate business bank account

Keeping business money separate from personal money lets you see your real margin instead of guessing at it. Most high street banks and challenger banks (Starling, Tide, Monzo Business) offer free or low-cost business accounts that set up in a day.

5. Connect your bank to accounting software

Once you've got a business account, link it to something like FreeAgent or Xero. This gets your income, expenses, and eventually your tax return, tracking automatically instead of living in a shoebox of receipts. Most UK business bank accounts integrate directly. You'll thank me for this tip when it's time to submit taxes!

6. Food hygiene and Natasha's Law-compliant labelling

Level 2 Food Hygiene and Safety is the standard course most councils expect, and it's cheap and quick to do online. Pair that with getting your allergen labelling right from day one, see our allergen labelling guide for the specifics.

7. Know what each product costs, and what to make

Accounting software records money after it has moved. It can't tell you what a recipe costs to make, whether a market stall or café price covers your costs, or what to buy for next week. Before your first order, cost each product properly (see how to cost a recipe) and keep every order in one place, so you can total them and plan what to make and buy.

A spreadsheet and a notebook will do at the start. MakrPrep does costing, pricing, orders, production planning and shopping lists in one place, and you can try it free for 14 days.