Anyone know of someone who sells homemade soups,challah,etc

loveshoes

Sun, Oct 24 2010, 5:54 pm

I am looking to find someone who sells homemade soups, kugels, desserts, from their home. Just curious as to how much they charge.

Sweet Valley Gal

Sun, Oct 24 2010, 5:55 pm

What area are you in?

elf123

Sun, Oct 24 2010, 5:59 pm

There's someone who does this in Elizabeth, NJ...I know she delivers but not sure how far. You need to say where you are approximately.

loveshoes

Sun, Oct 24 2010, 6:01 pm

Just curious in general-what they sell and how much they sell it for?

shanie5

Sun, Oct 24 2010, 6:07 pm

You want to do the same thing or do u want to order from them?

TwinsMommy

Sun, Oct 24 2010, 6:46 pm

I think a lot of people don't do this because of the extra exhorbitant cost of having a commercial second kitchen in their home. Most people who do this (I think) go through external sources first and THEN move the business home. For instance here in Cleveland we have a lady who does cakes--- she was doing the business in the commercial kitchen at the bagel shop for a while but I think she's buying a house now which has a second kitchen so that she can move the business into the home and get the permits to run it from home.

In a lot of states you can't bake in your own kitchen for profit. I guess you can give food to friends and family, but if you're selling you can get in big trouble.

elf123

Mon, Oct 25 2010, 6:07 am

The person I mentioned in Elizabeth has a Facebook page called "Your Chef Naturally." It seems she sells mostly challahs and soups. Some of the prices are listed on the FB page, you can check it out or email her, I guess.

JAWSCIENCE

Mon, Oct 25 2010, 11:57 am

Your area really does matter because you can charge more for tings in certain areas than others. If you live in Vermont it is not going to help you to know what a lady in Florida sells.

That being said - many ladies who do this are doing it illegally. Twins Mommy is right - many states will not allow you to bake or cook from home and sell the products. Many will not even allow you to do this with a separate kitchens in your home - you need to have the kitchen in a free standing structure. Some even quibble that this free standing structure cannot be in a residential neighborhood. Plus you need to ave taken food handling courses and be insured. Costs can add up pretty quick - which is why many people are illegally selling.

Aside from the regular legal rules you also have the kosher legal rules. Do you live in a place where people would even buy from a place without hashgacha? Because that is another huge expense.

You need to know your market - in some neighborhoods you can get with illegal, no hasgacha products cooked in the home because you are selling to members of a community who know. However, even in these place your product will be influenced by these things. It won't make sense to make fancy cakes and cookies for instance, because no hall will allow them into their door unless you have hasgacha and a food vendor license. However, selling soup to working moms could work. Yet doing so uninsured is still not advisable. There's always going to be one mom who currently has no health insurance, whose child gets a rash and needs to go to the ER who decides that your soup is to blame, even though it probably is not, so she can hit you up for the costs.

The food business is very rough. The first thing you need to do to determine prices is not to see what the competition charges. It is to make a list of your expenses Including ingredients that you only use a tiny amount of (vanilla extract) because eventually you will need to buy more of it and if it hasn't been figured into the cost of each item, then you will end up loosing money. Also under consideration are your electricity bills, costs of pans etc. as they will wear out faster, paper towels, etc. There are a lot of hidden costs out thre. If you still want to move ahead with this you should make a business plan and check out your market and the laws where you live. There a few free, good resources online for doing this.

Leah613

Tue, Dec 14 2010, 2:22 pm

I know its late to reply but you can pm me if you like- I sold challahs for few years abroad. one small community the rav gave me hashgacha. the other one was word of mouth- people knew me/ word of mouth/and my kashrus standards. I was once told to triple your costs and charge that, I like that advice. But where I can charge more I do- challahs are cheap to make, and where I have to lower them I do (eg when I use spelt flour I cannot triple costs) this also covers obvious leftover and extra unforeseen costs (like paying babysitter to watch your kids when you catch up on sleep!)

artikidove

Tue, Dec 14 2010, 2:33 pm

someone in baltimore does it - the shabbos chef. I'm sure she's on facebook as well. and she does it all in her kitchen at home, which is not large at all.

MommyZ

Tue, Dec 14 2010, 2:45 pm

DH's cousin in West Orange does things like that.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Not-Just-Soup/150975081613404

TwinsMommy

Tue, Dec 14 2010, 4:47 pm

Leah613--- once you have the commercial kitchen set up then triple the cost seems like it would give you a reasonable profit margin... but how much beginning investment is there when constructing a whole new kitchen---- or did you do it from a shul or kosher restaurant? I have a friend who actually wanted to do this but the costs were so exhorbitant that it would take forever to reach a profit.

artikidove--- so she already had 2 kitchens? she didn't spend the $$$ to construct a second one when starting the biz?

JAWSCIENCE

Tue, Dec 14 2010, 7:54 pm

TwinsMommy wrote:

In some states "cottage business" is legal. Meaning you can use your home oven to cook/bake for sale. I think it would be a problem with hashgacha though. Some people have a house that came with a Pessach kitchen. That could become the business kitchen.

edited because I wrote "slae" instead of "sale". I should sleep more.

TwinsMommy

Tue, Dec 14 2010, 8:04 pm

thanks for the reminder-- I did read about that and had forgotten.... I read a couple of articles about specific wording you have to have on your labels and different things to be considered cottage. I had forgotten about that, right.

so if you're selling cottage cheese that you make in your home kitchen as a cottage business---- (yeah I need to sleep more too!)

Dolly Welsh

Sun, Aug 07 2011, 7:08 pm

Mrs. Devorah Heller is known as The Challah Lady, in Brooklyn NY; phone 718-436-0927. She helps with baking problems, and sells ready-made dough. There was an article about her in N'shei Chabad, June 2010, page 37.