Smoking for people - not really catering

Contact your local health department.

Taking money for cooking is catering even at the lowest level. Besides taking money out of the pockets of people doing it for a living you are also placing all your assets on the line. You need to be licensed, have a HD approved kitchen, buy insurance. By letting them provide the meat you have no idea or control of quality or safe food handling. In the catering world we don't mind competition but what you are describing is what someone in the trades would call being a scab!

TX_LJ said:

Howdy all!

I've gotten a few requests from friends to smoke a hunk of meat for them for various reasons. I'll usually do a brisket or a butt if someone asks me to and they're friends. This got me to thinking...there's lots of folks who want something smoked for them for their family or a very small party. I don't necessarily care to get into the full fledged catering business right now, but I'm toying with the idea of getting a larger pit (only have 1 BGE now) with the intent to offer smoking meats for folks. How would you charge for something like this?

Say - someone wants a 14lb brisket smoked. If they provide the meat...would you charge a flat X rate for a finished product? How would I go about something like this?

Happy to read other threads if this has been posted before and I missed it...feel free to link away.

Thanks all!

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poorolddan said:

Taking money for cooking is catering even at the lowest level. Besides taking money out of the pockets of people doing it for a living you are also placing all your assets on the line. You need to be licensed, have a HD approved kitchen, buy insurance. By letting them provide the meat you have no idea or control of quality or safe food handling. In the catering world we don't mind competition but what you are describing is what someone in the trades would call being a scab!

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Poor old man is correct in my opinion, what if that 14lb brisket sat on his cupboard for two days and you smoke it and they get sick?

I see it now and then when someone wants meat for a event and they say "whathisname will do it for $$$ a pound, why are you so much more?"

Oh Yes It Is

Hi LJ,

I'm going through something similar right now & unfortunately, what you describe is actually catering. However, in most areas it is not actually "that bad" of a process to get setup legally.

My suggestions & what I have found...

Reach out to your local health department and city/county code enforcement. I'm sure you are not the first person in that area to want to cater and they will be very familiar with what you need to do and who you need to talk to. My small town in southwest VA even had a packet prepared they email me to tell me what to do.

I would strongly suggest setting up a LLC to cover yourself legally. The average costs of setting one up are around $500. I was able to hire an attorney through Thumbtack dot com and get mine done for around $250. Or, you can even do your own paperwork online if you are comfortable and only pay the $100 filing fee.

Costs vary for business permits / licenses but in most areas I would say you are looking at well under $100 to get what you need from your local government to operate for a year.

The ongoing costs come from insurance. While some areas will let you operate without general liability insurance - I wouldn't risk it. What if even 1 person you feed gets sick? We all hope that never happens but here in the real world you need to protect yourself. I'm still looking into insurance quotes myself so I can't give you any numbers here yet - but everything I've seen so far indicates that it is very cheap for the peace of mind it provides.

Bottom Line - If you are going to start cooking for people you really need to do it correctly. Adjust your rates to cover your expenses. If your product is good - people will gladly pay you what you need.

Good Luck!

I agree with the above. The first thing I did was contact the health department and start the licensing process. Next I setup a LLC to protect my personal assets, and lastly I obtained insurance to further protect myself.

All it takes is one person to get sick and you could be out everything you have.

Also, never never never cook food for others that you didn't purchase yourself. You have no idea if it was cold held at the proper temperature prior to being turned over to you.

Or.. you buy the meat, pass through that cost to them. Charge them $25 per brisket or whatever works in your neck of the woods.

If the requests become more frequent and you start thinking its a viable income stream, then yes, set up your LLC and get licensed.

First thing to know is.. what your doing is essentially illegal. No food sold for consumption can be prepared anywhere but a licensed commercial kitchen.

At least here in Harris and surrounding counties of the greater Houston MSA.

Yes, of course it's done all the time but if your going to be serious about it, then you'll have to solve that puzzle.