Food & drink makers

Selling food made in your home kitchen on Vancouver Island

BC has no cottage food law. Food made in a home kitchen can be sold only at farmers’ markets, only if it is a lower-risk food like bread, cookies or jam, and only in person with a sign saying the kitchen is not inspected. Selling online, from home or to shops needs an approved kitchen.

A change is coming

  • A new guideline for selling at farmers’ markets — proposed, no date set; it may not happen. What changes

Only want the steps that apply to you?

Answer a few yes-or-no questions and this list trims to your business. Build your checklist

What you need, in order

7 steps. Each links to its own page, with the forms and the rule behind it.

  1. 1

    Home-based business zoning

    Your municipality

    Whether you may make food at home to sell is set by your municipality’s zoning bylaw, and the rules differ across the Island. North Cowichan doesn’t allow it: food isn’t on its fixed list of home businesses. Langford allows catering only, in a one-family dwelling with Medical Health Officer approval, and treats making packaged food as industry. Saanich allows nothing to be sold or displayed at any home, and only a home office in its multi-unit and several other zones; Sidney bars selling foodstuffs from the property; Colwood requires Medical Health Officer approval before any home occupation that provides food or drink operates; and Esquimalt allows it with its standard conditions, including no odours. Oak Bay’s new rules, reported adopted in September 2026, ban restaurants and retail, and Victoria has two zoning bylaws, so check your address — ask the municipality’s planners before you start.

  2. 2

    pH or water-activity test from an accredited lab

    A commercial food-testing laboratory

    For jams, pickles, salsa and other foods with a pH condition

    Proves a jam, pickle, salsa or other conditional food is lower-risk — usually pH 4.6 or below, or water activity 0.85 or below; an uncooked fresh-tomato salsa needs pH 4.2 or below. Your market manager or Island Health can ask you to prove it; when Island Health requires a test, use a commercial lab. Your own meter is fine while you develop a recipe and for routine quality checks. Re-test when the recipe changes.

  3. 3

    The “not inspected” sign at your market table

    Market guideline

    Home-made food at a market needs a sign the customer can see saying it was made in a kitchen that isn’t inspected. The 2020 guideline’s wording is “This food has been prepared in a kitchen that is not inspected by a regulatory authority”; equivalent wording is accepted.

  4. 4

    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.

  5. 5

    MarketSafe

    BC FOODSAFE Secretariat

    OptionalRecommended; some markets require it

    Food safety for farmers’ market, farm-gate and small-producer vendors. Not required by law and not equivalent to FOODSAFE Level 1, but some markets require it.

    Cost:
    $55 online.
  6. 6

    Vendor liability insurance

    Your insurer — most markets set a requirement

    Each farmers’ market sets its own insurance rules, and many require vendors to carry their own liability insurance naming the market — sometimes also the business association, city and regional district — as an additional insured; BCAFM’s group insurance for markets does not cover vendors. James Bay Market requires $2 million for all food vendors, the only 2026 amount found (Oaklands Sunset Market’s 2025 handbook asked $1 million of food service vendors). BCAFM’s daily-rate vendor insurance through Duuo ends on November 30, 2026, with no replacement named yet; its annual group rate through Western Financial Group comes with the $75 BCAFM Vendor Membership and starts at $175 (the same page also says $160).

  7. 7

    Municipal business licence

    Your municipality

    Check your municipality; some markets hold one for all vendors

    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.

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.

Rules where you are

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

When you’re ready to sell

Selling on Local Pass

Food from a home kitchen can be sold in person at farmers’ markets, not online, so Local Pass isn’t the place for it yet. Once you rent time in a shared or commercial kitchen, it is: your market regulars can order from you all week.

  • Your own storefront

    A storefront on the Island Food Market, with every product on its own page, built to be found on Google.

  • Your units

    Each product carries its own unit and price — by the dozen, the loaf, the bunch or the pound.

Find a kitchen to rent No subscription — a fee on each sale.

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.

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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