[WILLOWBROOK2018]

Hello fellow smallholders!
This might be a long shot but I have always found these forums really useful for all sorts of information, and can't find any other posts on what I'm about to ask so i'll get straight to the point...

This year we raised our 1st lot of pigs (2 Oxford Sandy & Blacks) and sold the excess meat as joints and sausages to neighbours and friends. We've had amazing feedback so know we did something right for first timers! 
Some of the meat we kept back for ourselves I turned into cured bacon and hams, and we were over the moon with the results.
This was a bit of a light bulb moment for me as I've always enjoyed making/crafting and am passionate about good food, so have been thinking I would love to go down the root of making cured meat products and charcuterie using our own pork, and selling commercially (Not on a massive scale, but enough to keep me busy and make enough to cover some of the bills would be the dream) . My husband also really wants to scale up the pigs as he loved rearing them, so sourcing quality meat wont be a problem.

So my questions is, is there anybody out there that has been in my position and done this themselves? How did you transition from making for your own consumption in your kitchen, to scaling up and selling directly to the public and setting up a work space at home? Especially without huge investment, but if required what's worth spending the money on to give you that professional setup?  Is it everything you hoped it would be or are there massive down sides to this that I'm not aware of?

I have read tonnes of information from books and websites about techniques, recipes, methods etc both traditional artisan and modern day methods, but am really looking for advice on the actual setting up and running of a small business in this industry from somebody who's actually done it.

Would love to hear of other people experiences good or bad! (Thanks for reading to the end  )

[harmony]

There are the key things about setting up a food business such as complying with health and hygiene regulations (contact local authority, search gov.uk) and registering with HMRC ( all info on web).


The next thing for me would be your market. Who are you going to sell to and how? Linked to production. How much room/facilities/storage etc have you got? Not forgetting how much room have you got for pigs? Because it is no good putting all your effort into setting up a business, putting the infrastructure and marketing into place if you haven't the land to keep enough pigs of different ages to supply the raw product.


If you have a good idea and the drive it doesn't matter how anyone else set up or got started. There are organisations out there who help develop ideas into businesses.