Starting a food business

Food business registration is required by law if their food activities are regular and organised. Businesses must register all of their premises at least 28 days before trading. Registration is free.

Types of food businesses that require to register include:

• restaurants, cafés, snack bars and takeaways
• hotels, bed and breakfasts, pubs, bars and nightclubs
• caterers and meal preparation businesses
• clubs where food or alcohol is provided, such as bowling clubs and golf clubs
• market stalls, temporary premises and mobile premises such as ice cream vans, burger vans and fish vans
• kitchens in hospitals, care homes, residential homes, schools and nurseries
• retailers including cash and carries, supermarkets, newsagents and farm shops
• providing food from a kitchen at home such as cake makers, childminders and home caterers, including selling food online via a website or social media
• manufacturers, breweries and distillers
• importers, packers, distributers, warehouses and food brokers

If you start a new food business or take over an existing one, you must:

• register or get approved
• have the correct licences and planning permission
• provide food safely and comply with food law

Once registered, your business will be subject to periodic food law inspections by our Environmental Health Service.

If you handle, prepare, store or serve food occasionally, such as at community or charity events, it is unlikely that you will need to register as a food business.

Find out more at Food Standards Scotland: Community and charity events

Even if registration is not required, you must still provide food safely.

You may need to register if you provide food on a regular and organised basis.

Some types of food businesses do not have to be registered, but instead must be approved by the competent food authority, our Environmental Health Service or Food Standards Scotland.

This applies to establishments which handle products of animal origin, with some limited exceptions.

Approval must be granted before starting or operating.

Environmental Health Approvals

Environmental Health Service approves:

• produce meat products, fishery products, milk and dairy products and egg products,
• produce minced meat, meat preparations and mechanically separated meat, in a premises where there is no slaughter or cutting
• process gelatine and collagen, cold stores and businesses that do re-wrapping and re-packaging of products of animal origin in a premises where there is no slaughter or cutting, and
• dispatch and purification centres with live bivalve molluscs

Food Standards Scotland Approvals

Food Standards Scotland approves:

• abattoirs, cutting plants and game handling establishments which require veterinary control, and
• any co-located cold store, re-wrapping establishment, minced meat, meat preparations, and mechanically separated meat activities

Please contact our Environmental Health Service or Food Standards Scotland, if your business needs approval.

You may also need:

• planning permission if the building wasn’t previously used for food
• building standards approval for structural changes or extra drainage
• landlord or title deed permission if operating from home

Licences may be required to:

• sell alcohol
• provide entertainment
• provide late hours catering
• conduct mobile sales