How to open a butcher shop, deli or fish market on Vancouver Island

1. 1

   Zoning for a shop, café or kitchen

   Your municipality

   Before you sign a lease

   Before you sign a lease, check that the zoningZoningThe municipal rules that say what each property may be used for. A café, a bakery or a food processor needs a property zoned for that use before any permit is worth applying for — check it before you sign a lease.All terms in the glossary at that address allows your use. Cities split food businesses into separate uses — restaurant, take-out, drive-through, food processing, retail — and a use a zone doesn’t list is not allowed there; making food with no counter is often an industrial use. Victoria’s 2018 zoning bylaw bans drive-throughs in every zone it covers.

   Cost:

   Looking it up is free. A written confirmation costs $80 to $210 where a municipality sells one — see the table on this page.

2. 2

   Island Health plan approval

   Island Health

   Before you build, renovate or fit out a restaurant, café, bakery, food processor, commissary, food truck or food shop, Island Health must approve your floor plan and equipment. You send the plans first, build only once they are approved, and an inspector checks the finished space before you open. A shop selling only whole fresh produce, or prepackagedPrepackagedSealed in its package before it reaches the customer, the way it will be sold. Prepackaged food must carry the federal food label.All terms in the glossary foods that aren’t potentially hazardousHigher-risk foodFood that bacteria can grow in, or produce toxins in, unless it is kept cold or hot — meat, fish, dairy, eggs, cut fruit, most cooked meals. The law calls it “potentially hazardous food”. It must come from an approved kitchen, never a home one.All terms in the glossary, is exempt.

3. 3

   Building permit for a renovation or change of use

   Your municipality

   Altering a commercial space — or only changing its use, say a shop becoming a café — needs a building permit from your municipality, even with no construction; painting and other cosmetic work don’t. You can’t open until the building inspector’s final inspection and occupancy permit. A change of use can bring seismic, fire-separation, accessibility and sprinkler upgrades, and most municipalities want Island Health’s approved plans with it.

   Cost:

   Set by each municipality, from a percentage of the construction value to a fee per $1,000 — see the table on this page. Starting work without a permit usually doubles it.

   Time:

   Most municipalities publish no processing time. Victoria expects four to six months for extensive changes; Nanaimo targets 8 weeks for a tenant improvement.

4. 4

   Grease interceptor

   The CRD in Greater Victoria; your municipality elsewhere

   A food business that sends fat, oil or grease down the drain needs a grease interceptorGrease interceptorA tank on a kitchen’s drain line that catches fats, oils and grease before they reach the sewer. Most food businesses on a municipal sewer need one, sized, installed and pumped out under the local sewer rules.All terms in the glossary — a tank that catches it before it blocks the sewer. In Greater Victoria the CRD’s bylaw requires one and wants its Waste Discharge Assessment Form before you choose it; Victoria wants the CRD’s answer before it issues your building permit. Nanaimo, Courtenay, Duncan and North Cowichan have their own bylaws requiring one. Food trucks are exempt.

   Cost:

   CRD fines reach $10,000 a day.

5. 5

   Fire inspection and kitchen fire safety

   Your fire department

   Your licence may need a fire inspection

   Two things. First, your municipality’s fire department may inspect a new restaurant, café, shop or kitchen — some before they issue your business licenceBusiness licenceYour municipality’s permission to do business there, renewed each year in most towns. It is separate from Island Health’s permits and from zoning: you usually need all three.All terms in the glossary, others on a yearly or risk-based schedule after you open. Second, any cooking that gives off grease-laden vapour — fryers, grills, woks, ranges — needs a hood, duct and automatic fire-suppression system built to the NFPA 96 standard, which the BC Building Code requires.

6. 6

   Food safety plan and sanitation plan

   You write them; Island Health approves them

   Two short written documents: a food safety plan, saying how you keep each food safe and what you do when something goes wrong, and a sanitation planSanitation planYour written routine for cleaning and sanitizing, pest control and garbage: what is cleaned, how, how often and with what. BC requires one from every food premises, alongside a food safety plan.All terms in the glossary, saying how you clean and sanitise. Every restaurant, caterer, food processor and kitchen needs both, and Island Health approves them before it issues your permit or approval.

7. 7

   Approval to operate

   Island Health

   What Island Health gives a food premisesFood premisesIn BC law, any place where food for the public is sold, prepared, packaged, stored, served or transported — a restaurant, a food truck, a bakery, a warehouse. The Food Premises Regulation sets the rules for all of them, with a few exceptions.All terms in the glossary that doesn’t serve food to eat on the spot — a food processor, a bakery with no retail counter, a food shop, a commissary — instead of an operating permitOperating permitIsland Health’s permit to run a restaurant, café, food truck or other food service business. You get it after the pre-opening inspection, pay its fee each year, and post it where customers can see it.All terms in the glossary. It follows the same plan approvalPlan approvalIsland Health’s review of your floor plan, equipment and menu before you build or renovate a food premises. Nothing gets built until it is approved, and the pre-opening inspection checks you built what was approved.All terms in the glossary and pre-opening inspection, and must be in place before you open.

   Cost:

   No yearly fee: the Health Act Fees Regulation charges only operating permits.

8. 8

   Slaughter licence: Abattoir, Farmgate Plus or Farmgate

   BC Ministry of Agriculture and Food

   What your suppliers must hold

   All meat and poultry sold in BC must be slaughtered under a licence. An abattoir inspects every animal and sells anywhere in BC; Farmgate Plus (up to 25 animal units a year — the licence former Class D and E holders now have) sells anywhere in BC, labelled “Not Government Inspected“Not Government Inspected”The label BC requires on meat from a Farmgate Plus licence, where no government inspector checked the animal. That meat may be sold anywhere in BC, but never outside it.All terms in the glossary”; Farmgate (up to 5 units, your own animals) sells only directly to consumers — from the farm, or at markets in your regional district or within 50 km. None of it may leave BC.

9. 9

   Seafood processor licence

   BC Ministry of Agriculture and Food

   Unless processing is part of your permitted shop

   Needed to process fish — fillet, smoke, can, freeze or pack it — for sale, unless the processing is part of a restaurant or shop with a food premises permit. Also exempt: a commercial fisher who only bleeds, heads, guts, ices, freezes or packs their own catch at sea; a business with a federal processing licence; a freshwater fish farm; and processing a sport fisher’s catch that goes back only to them.

10. 10

    A legal-for-trade scale, if you price by weight

    Measurement Canada

    Only matters if you charge by weight — by the pound or kilo at the counter or market table. Then the scale must be a “legal for trade” model, the kind sold for retail use with a Measurement Canada approval number, rather than a kitchen scale, and a private service company checks it every five years. It sits level, faces the customer and is zeroed, and packaging isn’t charged. Food sold by the piece, or in packs that all weigh the same, doesn’t need one; neither does portioning a burger patty.

11. 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 dateDurable life (best-before date)How long an unopened food keeps its quality when stored properly. Packaged food that keeps 90 days or less must show a best-before date.All terms in the glossary if it keeps 90 days or less, a lot code or other identifier that tells batches apart, 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. 12

    Patio and sign permits

    Your municipality

    For a patio or signage

    Most municipalities require a permit for an exterior sign; Sidney doesn’t. A patio on a public sidewalk needs a patio licence or agreement where the municipality has a program at all — Victoria, Langford, Oak Bay, Sidney, Courtenay, Nanaimo and Duncan do — usually with $5 million of liability insurance naming the municipality.

    Cost:

    Signs from free (Sidney) to $250 (Colwood); patios from $50 to apply plus a yearly rate — see the tables on this page.

13. 13

    Municipal business licence

    Your municipality

    Every municipality on the Island requires a business licence — for a restaurant, café, shop or kitchen, for a business run from home, and for a food truck. For a storefront it is usually $100 to $200 a year, set by floor area; Nanaimo charges $165, Campbell River $150, and Courtenay’s fees rise in 2027. It is normally the last approval you get: most municipalities issue it only once zoning, building, fire and Island Health have signed off, and you can’t open before it’s issued.

14. 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. 15

    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.

What you can sell

Rules where you are

Business licences, zoning and home-business rules differ by municipality.

• City of Victoria
• District of Saanich
• City of Langford
• Township of Esquimalt
• District of Oak Bay
• City of Colwood
• Town of Sidney
• City of Nanaimo
• City of Duncan
• Municipality of North Cowichan
• City of Courtenay
• City of Campbell River