Restaurants, cafés & food service
How to start a bakery on Vancouver Island
A bakery needs Island Health to approve its kitchen before it opens: an operating permit if it serves food to eat on the spot, an approval to operate if it only bakes to sell. Selling wholesale or online needs full federal labels; baking at home is allowed only for lower-risk goods sold at farmers’ markets.
A change is coming
- New WorkSafeBC rules for combustible dust — takes effect 4 January 2027. What changes
24 changes with a date and 11 proposals for restaurants in all. See what’s coming
Only want the steps that apply to you?
What you need, in order
16 steps. Each links to its own page, with the forms and the rule behind it.
- 1
Zoning for your food business
Your municipality
Before you sign a lease
Before you sign a lease, check that the zone for the address allows your use — and in Victoria, ask Permits and Inspections to confirm the space’s legal use too, which can differ. Cities define uses narrowly: a restaurant, a take-out, a drive-through and food processing are often separate uses, and a use a zone doesn’t list is not allowed there. Making food with no counter is usually an industrial use: Langford excludes primary processing of meat, poultry and fish from its light-industrial use, and Nanaimo excludes processing livestock, fish and poultry from its food-processing use. Victoria’s 2018 zoning bylaw bans drive-throughs in every zone it covers.
- Cost:
- Saanich will confirm zoning in a letter for $200, within 10 working days.
- 2
Plan approval for your food premises
Island Health
Every food premises the regulation covers — restaurant, bakery, processor, food truck, commissary and most shops — needs its floor plans and equipment approved by an Environmental Health Officer before it is built or altered, and before it opens; a shop selling only whole produce, or prepackaged food that doesn’t need refrigeration, is exempt. The premises must be separate from living quarters.
- 3
Building permit for alterations or a change of use
Your municipality
Altering a commercial space — or only changing its use, say a shop becoming a café — needs a building permit, even with no construction; painting and other cosmetic work don’t. You can’t move in until the city issues an occupancy permit. A change of occupancy can trigger seismic, fire-separation, accessibility and sprinkler upgrades, and a restaurant for more than 30 people usually needs an architect. Langford and Nanaimo want Island Health’s stamped floor plans with the application; Victoria needs Island Health’s approval before it issues the permit.
- Cost:
- Victoria: $100 to apply plus 1.40% of the construction cost. Saanich: $100 for the first $1,000 plus $13 per $1,000 up to $500,000, and an application fee from $100 by project value. Langford: $63.41 for the first $1,000 plus $12.66 per $1,000 up to $100,000 (less above). Nanaimo: $105 plus $10 per $1,000 up to $100,000, then $7 per $1,000. Starting without a permit doubles the fee in Langford, and in Saanich (up to $20,000 extra).
- Time:
- Victoria expects four to six months for extensive changes. Nanaimo targets 8 weeks for a tenant improvement, and says it isn’t meeting its targets.
- 4
Grease interceptor
The CRD in Greater Victoria; your municipality elsewhere
In Greater Victoria, a food business that sends fat, oil or grease down the drain must install a certified, properly sized grease interceptor, and file a Waste Discharge Assessment Form with the CRD before choosing or replacing one — Victoria wants the CRD’s answer before it issues a building permit. Dishwashing, prep and barista sinks and dishwashers drain through it; toilets and hand sinks must not. Have it pumped out at least every 12 months and before grease and solids reach a quarter of its depth, and keep two years of records. Food trucks are exempt. Nanaimo requires one where wastewater carries excessive grease; elsewhere, ask your municipality.
- Cost:
- CRD fines reach $10,000 a day.
- 5
Gas and propane work
Technical Safety BC
If you bake with gas or propane
Installing or altering a gas range, fryer, line or propane tank must be done by a licensed gas contractor under a Technical Safety BC installation permit — on the Island, no municipality issues its own, and the homeowner permit isn’t open to a business. Every new appliance must carry a certification mark or a Technical Safety BC approval mark. A business that owns a propane tank also needs an operating permit for it; refillable cylinders don’t.
- 6
Fire safety: kitchen hood, suppression and inspection
Your fire department
A hood only for frying or grilling; your licence may need a fire inspection
Cooking that gives off smoke or grease-laden vapour needs a hood, duct and automatic fire-suppression system built to the NFPA 96 standard, which the BC Building Code and Fire Code both require. Nanaimo’s guide lists what counts: ranges, fryers, grills, woks and ovens roasting meat do; pastry ovens, conveyor pizza ovens, coffee makers and steamers don’t. Hoods and ducts must be cleaned often — at least monthly in Saanich — and the manual-release instructions posted in the kitchen. Saanich inspects before it approves a business licence; Victoria requires an inspection, which you arrange once you apply for one.
- 7
Food safety plan and sanitation plan
You write them; Island Health approves them
Written procedures showing how you keep food safe (critical control points and limits) and how you clean and sanitise. Required of every food service establishment and every premises where food is processed or prepared, and approved before a permit or approval is issued.
- 8
Health operating permit
Island Health
If you sell food to eat on the spot
Needed by a “food service establishment” — anywhere food is prepared and served for immediate eating: restaurants, cafés, take-outs, caterers, most food trucks. Issued after a pre-opening inspection; permits are personal and not transferable to a new owner.
- Cost:
- $150 a year for up to 50 seats (and for take-outs and caterers), $250 over 50 seats; a mobile unit pays a flat $75, or $150 prorated. Other permits are prorated by month for seasonal businesses. No fee if you operate 14 days or fewer in a fiscal year (April–March).
- 9
Approval to operate
Island Health
If you only bake to sell
Food premises that don’t serve food for immediate eating — food processors, bakeries without a counter, food stores, commissaries — receive an approval to operate instead of a permit. Health approval must be in place before you open.
- 10
FOODSAFE Level 1
BC FOODSAFE Secretariat
Required with an operating permit
Required by law of every operator of a food service establishment, and of at least one person on shift when the operator is away. Island Health asks for the certificate with a permit application.
- Cost:
- $69 online (Open School BC) or $115 by distance education; classroom fees vary by provider. Valid 5 years.
- 11
Federal food labels
CFIA and Health Canada rules
Prepackaged food needs a common name, net quantity, ingredients and allergens, your name and a physical address (a website doesn’t count), a best-before date if it keeps 90 days or less, a Nutrition Facts table, a front-of-pack “High in” symbol if it is high in saturated fat, sugars or sodium, and English and French — English-only is allowed for food sold only in the municipality where it’s made and its neighbours. Selling only at markets yourself removes the Nutrition Facts table and the front-of-pack symbol, unless the label makes a nutrition claim. There is no exemption for online sales, and a product may not be advertised online without a proper label.
- 12
Patio and sign permits
Your municipality
For a patio or signage
Exterior signs need a permit in Victoria, Saanich, Langford and Nanaimo; Saanich doesn’t allow roof, projecting, animated or portable signs. Once you hold a business licence, a patio on a Victoria sidewalk or street needs a yearly patio licence: a site meeting with City staff, an application, an inspection once it is built, and $5 million of liability insurance naming the City. Elsewhere, ask your municipality about patios.
- Cost:
- Signs: $100 each in Victoria (waived until late January 2027), $200 each in Saanich, $100 plus $70 a sign in Langford, $5 per square metre in Nanaimo (minimum $40, maximum $150 a sign). Victoria patios: $100 to apply, then $1.96–$5.78 per square foot for a year, or $0.98–$2.89 for a six-month seasonal licence (2025/26), by area and type; from 2027 rates rise 2.5% a year under an amendment set for adoption in September 2026, replacing a planned doubling.
- 13
Municipal business licence
Your municipality
Business licences are issued by each municipality, and every one of the twelve checked requires one — home-based food businesses included. Fees differ: most charge about $100 a year for a home-based licence, Nanaimo $165, and Oak Bay $100 to $200 by type under new rules reported adopted in September 2026; Courtenay’s rises from $75 to $150 in 2027. Langford and Colwood charge once, and the licence then carries on. Mobile businesses can share one licence across municipalities — the Greater Victoria Inter-Municipal licence or the Vancouver Island Inter-Community licence ($170 on top of the local licence under the newest bylaws) — but the updated Inter-Community bylaw several municipalities have adopted excludes food trucks, carts and trailers — it starts once all participating municipalities have adopted it — and North Cowichan’s mobile food licence cannot be used intermunicipally.
- 14
Registering your business name
BC Registries
Trading under your own name needs no registration. Any other name means reserving it and registering within 3 months of first using it; a partnership registers within 3 months of forming. Incorporating is the alternative, and only a corporation, co-op or society gets exclusive use of its name.
- Cost:
- Name request $30 (reserved 56 days); sole proprietorship or partnership registration $40; incorporation $350, then a $43.39 annual report.
- 15
GST registration
Canada Revenue Agency
Sweet baked goods sold in packs of fewer than six are taxable
Most groceries are zero-rated, but candy, snacks, carbonated drinks, hot food, catering and sweet baked goods sold in packs of fewer than six are taxable at 5%. You must register once your sales pass $30,000 in a quarter or over four quarters — and zero-rated grocery sales count toward it.
- 16
Safe Food for Canadians licence
Canadian Food Inspection Agency
Only if you ship to other provinces
Needed to make, process, pack or label food that goes to another province, and to import food; a business that only exports needs one just to get a CFIA export certificate. Not needed for food made and sold only in BC, nor by a restaurant or caterer sending food straight to its customers.
- Time:
- Valid two years.
What you can make at home to sell
At a farmers’ market, in person, with a sign saying your kitchen isn’t inspected. Anything else needs a kitchen approved by Island Health.
Can be made at home for a market (16)
Needs an approved kitchen (5)
Rules where you are
Business licences, zoning and home-business rules differ by municipality.
When you’re ready to sell
Selling on Local Pass
A bakery sells out or throws out. On Local Pass, regulars order ahead for pickup or delivery, so more of each bake is spoken for before it leaves the oven.
Your own storefront
A storefront on the Island Food Market, with every product on its own page, built to be found on Google.
Soon to Go
Clear surplus at a discount, with a clearance badge and boosted placement.
Wholesale for restaurants
Bulk prices and a shareable wholesale order sheet, drawing on the same stock; buyers send quote requests to your inbox.
Local Pass is a platform that connects Island businesses and customers through its app and website — it is not a regulator. Every seller is responsible for the permits, licences and labels their food needs, and this guide is here to help you work out which ones.