Can I sell whole fruit & vegetables in BC?

Grown or raised on your farm

• At a farmers’ market

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

  Yes, if

  Whole fresh fruit and vegetables are lower-risk.

  • Whole and uncut.
  • Growing 1 tonne or more a year of regulated storage crops (potatoes, carrots, yellow onions, green and red cabbage and others) or greenhouse cucumbers, lettuce, peppers or tomatoes? Then you need a BC Vegetable Marketing Commission licence, and direct sales — from your farm, an authorised roadside stand or a farmers’ market — must be graded and limited to 300 lb of storage crops (60 lb greenhouse) per customer per day.

• At a festival or event

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

  Yes, if

  Premises that sell only whole fresh fruit and vegetables are outside BC’s Food Premises Regulation.

  • Whole and uncut — once you cut, wash-and-bag or juice it, it is a prepared food.
  • Growing 1 tonne or more a year of regulated storage crops (potatoes, carrots, yellow onions, green and red cabbage and others) or greenhouse cucumbers, lettuce, peppers or tomatoes? The Commission’s direct-sale exemption covers the farm, farmers’ markets and authorised roadside stands only — ask the BC Vegetable Marketing Commission before selling those crops at a fair or festival.

• From your door, shop or farm gate

  Customers buy where you make, grow or sell it

  Yes, if

  Premises that sell only whole fresh fruit and vegetables are outside BC’s Food Premises Regulation.

  • Whole and uncut — once you cut, wash-and-bag or juice it, it is a prepared food.
  • Growing 1 tonne or more a year of regulated storage crops (potatoes, carrots, yellow onions, green and red cabbage and others) or greenhouse cucumbers, lettuce, peppers or tomatoes? Then you need a BC Vegetable Marketing Commission licence, and direct sales — from your farm, an authorised roadside stand or a farmers’ market — must be graded and limited to 300 lb of storage crops (60 lb greenhouse) per customer per day.

• Online, with pickup or delivery

  Orders taken online, by message or by phone

  Yes, if

  Premises that sell only whole fresh fruit and vegetables are outside BC’s Food Premises Regulation.

  • Whole and uncut — once you cut, wash-and-bag or juice it, it is a prepared food.
  • Growing 1 tonne or more a year of regulated storage crops (potatoes, carrots, yellow onions, green and red cabbage and others) or greenhouse cucumbers, lettuce, peppers or tomatoes? The Commission’s direct-sale exemption covers the farm, farmers’ markets and authorised roadside stands only — ask the BC Vegetable Marketing Commission before selling those crops online.

• To shops, cafés & restaurants

  Wholesale, or on consignment in someone else’s store

  Ask first

  Shops and restaurants may only buy food from approved sources, and BC’s rules don’t say how that applies to a farm selling them whole produce — ask Island Health, or the buyer, what they need from you. Licensed growers of regulated vegetables must sell to shops through a designated agency, unless they hold a producer-shipper licence; small-scale and certified-organic growers have exceptions.

• 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.

How it’s classified

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

Businesses that sell it