Fruit, vegetables & microgreens

Can I sell cut microgreens in BC?

Whole, uncut fruit and vegetables are lower-risk. Once they are cut, sprouted or juiced they need a fridge and become higher-risk — and that includes cut microgreens.

A new guideline would change this

Changing: BC’s new market guideline (2026 draft, expected final this fall) lists it as higher-risk. Today’s 2020 guideline has it as lower-risk.

Grown or raised on your farm

  • At a farmers’ market

    A market with a market manager — farmers’ markets, Christmas markets, craft fairs

    Yes, if

    It is on the guideline’s list of lower-risk foods.

    • Sold in person at a market with a market manager.
    • Prepackaged and labelled: the common name, net quantity, your name and address.

  • At a festival or event

    Fairs, festivals, sports events, fundraisers — anything that is not a market

    Ask first

    The market guideline covers selling this at a farmers’ market. How BC’s food rules apply to selling it anywhere else isn’t spelled out — ask Island Health.

  • From your door, shop or farm gate

    Customers buy where you make, grow or sell it

    Ask first

    The market guideline covers selling this at a farmers’ market. How BC’s food rules apply to selling it anywhere else isn’t spelled out — ask Island Health.

  • Online, with pickup or delivery

    Orders taken online, by message or by phone

    Ask first

    The market guideline covers selling this at a farmers’ market. How BC’s food rules apply to selling it anywhere else isn’t spelled out — ask Island Health.

  • To shops, cafés & restaurants

    Wholesale, or on consignment in someone else’s store

    Ask first

    The market guideline covers selling this at a farmers’ market. How BC’s food rules apply to selling it anywhere else isn’t spelled out — ask Island Health.

  • To customers outside BC

    Shipping or selling across a provincial border

    Yes, if

    Fresh fruit and vegetables sent to another province come under federal produce rules — lighter on labels than made food, stricter on grades.

    • A Safe Food for Canadians licence if you pack and label it in a facility; growing, harvesting, sorting and trimming need none.
    • Graded and labelled with the grade, in standard container sizes. Blueberries, strawberries, cranberries, cantaloupes, crabapples and field rhubarb need no grade.
    • Label: the common name, net quantity, your name and address, in English and French. No Nutrition Facts table, ingredient list or best-before date.
    • Tax: you must register for GST/HST once your taxable sales (zero-rated groceries included) pass $30,000 over four quarters. A registered seller charges the delivery province’s rate — 13% HST in Ontario, for example — on taxable foods: candy, chocolate, chips and snacks, and sweet baked goods sold in packs of fewer than six. Most groceries (bread, jam, flour, produce) are zero-rated everywhere.
    • A written preventive control plan once your food sales pass $100,000.
The rules behind these answers

Sources

Made in a kitchen approved by Island Health

  • At a farmers’ market

    A market with a market manager — farmers’ markets, Christmas markets, craft fairs

    Yes, if

    Lower-risk food from an approved kitchen can be sold at a farmers’ market without applying to the health authority.

    • Packaged and labelled: the food’s common name, ingredients and allergens, net quantity, your name and a physical address, and a best-before date if it keeps 90 days or less (doughnuts excepted). French is also needed unless you sell only in your own municipality and the ones next to it. A Nutrition Facts table isn’t needed while you sell it only at markets yourself and make no nutrition or health claim.

  • At a festival or event

    Fairs, festivals, sports events, fundraisers — anything that is not a market

    Yes, if

    Sealed, packaged food from an approved kitchen needs no permit at an event — Island Health calls that a product booth. Serving, sampling or portioning it there does.

    • Sold prepackaged and labelled, with no open food or samples. The event coordinator lists your booth and confirms your kitchen’s approval; some coordinators still ask every vendor for Island Health’s application form.
    • Serving, sampling or portioning at the event needs a Temporary Food Service Permit from Island Health — apply at least 14 days ahead; it covers up to 14 days a year.
    • Packaged food carries the federal label: its common name, ingredients and allergens, net quantity, your name and a physical address, a best-before date if it keeps 90 days or less, a Nutrition Facts table, and a front-of-pack “High in” symbol if it is high in saturated fat, sugars or sodium. French is also needed unless it is sold only in your own municipality and the ones next to it.

  • From your door, shop or farm gate

    Customers buy where you make, grow or sell it

    Yes, if

    An approved kitchen can sell from its own premises.

    • Your kitchen holds Island Health’s approval to operate — or an operating permit, if you serve food for immediate eating (restaurant, take-out, catering).
    • Your food safety plan and sanitation plan, approved by Island Health, cover the foods you sell and how you store and transport them.
    • You sell from the approved premises. Selling from your home instead is limited to prepackaged food that doesn’t need refrigeration.
    • Packaged food carries a label: its common name, net quantity, your name and address, and, if it keeps 90 days or less, the packing date and how long it keeps. Food made and packed where you sell it needs no Nutrition Facts table.

  • Online, with pickup or delivery

    Orders taken online, by message or by phone

    Yes, if

    An approved kitchen can sell online and deliver — BC’s rules cover how food is handled, stored and transported, not which way the order arrives.

    • Your kitchen holds Island Health’s approval to operate — or an operating permit, if you serve food for immediate eating (restaurant, take-out, catering).
    • Your food safety plan and sanitation plan, approved by Island Health, cover the foods you sell and how you store and transport them.
    • Packaged food carries the federal label: its common name, ingredients and allergens, net quantity, your name and a physical address, a best-before date if it keeps 90 days or less, a Nutrition Facts table, and a front-of-pack “High in” symbol if it is high in saturated fat, sugars or sodium. French is also needed unless it is sold only in your own municipality and the ones next to it.
    • CFIA hasn’t said how the one-language rule for local food applies to deliveries — check before relying on it.

  • To shops, cafés & restaurants

    Wholesale, or on consignment in someone else’s store

    Yes, if

    Shops and restaurants may buy from an approved kitchen.

    • Your kitchen holds Island Health’s approval to operate.
    • Packaged food carries the federal label: its common name, ingredients and allergens, net quantity, your name and a physical address, a best-before date if it keeps 90 days or less, a Nutrition Facts table, and a front-of-pack “High in” symbol if it is high in saturated fat, sugars or sodium. French is also needed unless it is sold only in your own municipality and the ones next to it.
    • Food you sell to a café or restaurant to cook with or serve needs no Nutrition Facts table.

  • To customers outside BC

    Shipping or selling across a provincial border

    Yes, if

    Food made or packed in BC for customers in another province comes under federal rules as well as BC’s.

    • A Safe Food for Canadians licence from CFIA — not needed by a restaurant, caterer or similar business sending food straight to its customers. For a bakery or maker shipping to a customer, CFIA’s own guidance is unclear; use its licensing tool or ask CFIA.
    • Packaged food carries the full federal label in English and French: its common name, ingredients and allergens, net quantity, your name and a physical address, a best-before date if it keeps 90 days or less, a Nutrition Facts table, and a front-of-pack “High in” symbol where it applies.
    • Tax: you must register for GST/HST once your taxable sales (zero-rated groceries included) pass $30,000 over four quarters. A registered seller charges the delivery province’s rate — 13% HST in Ontario, for example — on taxable foods: candy, chocolate, chips and snacks, and sweet baked goods sold in packs of fewer than six. Most groceries (bread, jam, flour, produce) are zero-rated everywhere.
The rules behind these answers

Sources

How it’s classified

In force — 2020 guideline

Lower-risk

Sources

Proposed — 2026 draft

Higher-risk

Sources

More in fruit, vegetables & microgreens, or every food, A to Z.

Businesses that sell it

Farms & market gardensGrowing fruit, vegetables, grains or microgreens.

Last checked 26 September 2026. We check this guide regularly against Island Health, provincial and municipal sources, but regulations and laws change often and we can’t guarantee it is complete or current. Confirm with Island Health and your municipality before you apply, build or sell.

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