Food & drink makers
How to start a kombucha, juice or coffee business on Vancouver Island
Juice, cold brew, kombucha and other drinks are higher-risk foods in BC, so they must be made in a kitchen approved by Island Health. Kombucha and other sweetened fizzy drinks also carry 7% PST, and a drink with more than 1% alcohol is liquor, needing a manufacturer licence. Whole roasted coffee beans are the lower-risk exception.
Only want the steps that apply to you?
What you need, in order
13 steps. Each links to its own page, with the forms and the rule behind it.
- 1
Your own approval in a shared or rented kitchen
Island Health
If you rent a kitchen
Renting time in someone else’s approved kitchen doesn’t put you under their permit — permits are personal and not transferable. Island Health tells kitchen owners that every renter must contact them “for necessary approval”. Island Health publishes no separate commissary process, so call your local office before you start.
- 2
Zoning for your food business
Your municipality
If you set up your own kitchen
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.
- 3
Plan approval for your food premises
Island Health
If you build your own kitchen
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.
- 4
Building permit for alterations or a change of use
Your municipality
If you build your own kitchen
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.
- 5
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.
- 6
Approval to operate
Island Health
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.
- 7
Keeping kombucha and other ferments at or under 1% alcohol
Island Health (your food safety plan); LCRB above 1%
For kombucha, water kefir and other fermented drinks
In BC a drink is liquor once it holds more than 1% alcohol, and making liquor needs a manufacturer licence. Kombucha — and, by the same chemistry, water kefir and ginger beer — can keep fermenting in the bottle; a BC study found 70% of BC kombucha makers had products above 1%. Your food safety plan should show how you keep it under the line, including testing at bottling and at the end of shelf life; at 1.1% or more, federal rules also require the alcohol percentage on the label.
- 8
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.
- 9
Deposits on drinks in containers
BC Recycling Regulation (Encorp / Return-It)
For drinks sold in containers
Anyone selling a drink in a sealed container must collect a deposit of at least 10¢ per container, shown on the receipt — unless it is drunk on your premises. A business that makes a drink in BC is its “producer” and must be covered by an approved stewardship plan: for non-alcoholic drinks, register with Encorp (Return-It) and pay its recycling fee per container. There is no small-producer exemption.
- Cost:
- 2026 recycling fees: plastic 7¢, glass 13¢, aluminum 0¢ per container, on top of the 10¢ deposit the customer pays.
- 10
BC PST registration
BC Ministry of Finance
Kombucha and other sweetened fizzy drinks
Food, candy included, is exempt from PST. Sweetened carbonated drinks — kombucha included — are taxed at 7%, and liquor at 10%. Sell only exempt food and you don’t register; sell soda beverages and you do, unless you are a small seller with $10,000 or less in sales and no shop.
- 11
GST registration
Canada Revenue Agency
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.
- 12
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.
- 13
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.
What you can sell
Rules where you are
Business licences, zoning and home-business rules differ by municipality.
When you’re ready to sell
Selling on Local Pass
Drinks are heavy to haul to every market. On the Island Food Market, customers order them from you by the bottle or by the case.
Your own storefront
A storefront on the Island Food Market, with every product on its own page, built to be found on Google.
Wholesale for restaurants
Bulk prices and a shareable wholesale order sheet, drawing on the same stock; buyers send quote requests to your inbox.
Live stock counts
Stock drops with every sale and low stock is flagged; a product stops selling when you run out.
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.