Starting as a home cook: what do you need to arrange?

1. Register with the KVK

If you sell food regularly to make a profit, you are usually an entrepreneur and register with the Chamber of Commerce (KVK), often as a sole trader (eenmanszaak). You get a KVK number, and a VAT number from the Belastingdienst. → Official: kvk.nl

2. Registration with the NVWA

Anyone who makes and sells food is a food business and must be known to the NVWA (the Dutch food safety authority). For many businesses this happens through the KVK registration; check whether that applies to you. → Official: nvwa.nl

3. Hygiene and HACCP

You must work safely and be able to show it: check temperatures (fridge, freezer, core temperature), work cleanly, label your food and keep track of where your ingredients come from. Many businesses follow an approved hygiene code that fits their kind of business. → Official: nvwa.nl (hygiene codes)

How Mealbooks helps: your daily, weekly and periodic checks are ready in HACCP & Hygiene. Mealbooks sees whether a check passed, asks for the action taken when it failed, and you print the logs for the inspector.

4. Allergens

You must be able to tell your customers which of the 14 legal allergens are in a dish. → Official: nvwa.nl (allergens)

How Mealbooks helps: record the recipe and allergens per dish in Recipes, and ask the Business Assistant “Which dishes contain allergens?”.

5. VAT and the small business scheme

Food usually has the reduced VAT rate (9%). You file a VAT return every quarter. With a small turnover you may be able to use the small business scheme (KOR). → Official: belastingdienst.nl

How Mealbooks helps: your invoices show VAT per rate, and Mealbooks works out the figures for your quarterly VAT return.

6. Your municipality

Whether you may run a business from your home, and whether customers may collect there, depends on your municipality. → Official: your municipality’s website

7. Your first customers

Put your dishes on the menu with prices, make a price list for regular customers, and take orders with a delivery date. Mealbooks makes the invoice when you mark the order delivered.