Everybody wants to make money doing something that they love. If you’re a social media fanatic, you probably want to know how to get paid using Instagram. If you love crafting, you probably plan on setting up an Etsy shop and turning your hobby into your business. If you love food, why not start a food business?
There’s a common misconception that most restaurants fail in the first year of business. Because of this, many would-be restaurateurs shy away from pursuing their dream. Even people interested in starting a business that is food-related, (but not a restaurant), worry about the assumed failure rate associated with restaurants and will put their pursuit on hold or go a different direction altogether. The truth is, though, that food businesses do quite well, (when operated smartly and done right).
Believe it or not, one of the best places to start a food-related business is online. While people can’t consume food through their computer, 85 percent of people will look up local businesses online. This means that if you launch your business online, you’re more likely to be found than if you simply opened up a brick and mortar. In fact, certain food businesses don’t even need a brick and mortar location to operate and can be run entirely through the Internet—here are some of the top food businesses that you can start online today:
Catering
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Although you’ll have to get offline to cook and deliver the food to the people who pay for your catering services, if your state allows, you can cook up full meals from your home and advertise online, keeping your overhead low. You can cater corporate events, birthday parties, weddings, and other private events and earn extra money doing what you love.
Baked Goods
Like catering, you’ll want to check with your state to see what regulations and rules they have on baking and selling goods out of your home; however, you can advertise your world-famous cookies or your perfectly soft and delicious bread through a page on Facebook, a website, or any other online means you see fit. Then, you can collect orders and deliver your fresh-baked goods or even ship them across the country if your clientele grows nationally.
Bartending
There’s no denying that bartending is an art. While anyone can mix a couple of different drinks, not everyone can do it and make it taste good or do it in style. Even fewer people can create their own, original drinks on the fly that are bigger crowd pleasers than the classics. If you’ve got a knack for bartending, you can start advertising your services online and freelance events or even fill in for bartenders when they’re out of town or homesick.
A Food Blog
You can use a food blog to sell and advertise your services or others to help you earn money; however, you can focus the main part of your food blog on discussing local eateries, favorite recipes, and which ingredients are better than others. You could start a food blog on which you share recipes that are delicious and nutritious but are cheaper than eating out. Or you can teach home cooks, with step-by-step instructions, how to create gourmet meals.
Personal Chef
Life is crazy, and people don’t have time to get everything done. That usually means that dinner is heated up from a frozen state or purchased and brought home from a restaurant down the street. After a while, though, many people become tired of the options they have and would pay well for a home-cooked meal. That’s where you can step in.
You can advertise your services for home-cooked dinners on local Facebook pages and in local online ads, and you can let your neighbors know about your latest pursuit. Local families would be more than happy to purchase your dinners, and you can keep costs low by doing the business side of things online.
Cooking Classes
Not everybody knows how to cook. Some don’t care to learn, but others wish they could but don’t know where to start. You can offer cooking classes that you advertise online and host in a local community center, or you can host the cooking classes online only through Facebook live, exclusive webinars, etc.
Final Thoughts
Everybody loves to eat, and if you love to cook, there’s a lot of potential to make money with a food business. Whether you start a blog, offer catering services, or teach cooking classes online, you can turn your passion into your business and start earning money doing what you love. What other types of food businesses would you start online?