How to start a meal prep business in Alberta

Alberta is more open to home food businesses than most provinces, and the opening is narrower than the headlines suggest. The Food Regulation says no person shall operate a food establishment without a valid permit, and no person shall handle food except in an approved food establishment, apart from the cases it lists. One of those cases is the handling of low-risk home-prepared food, which needs no permit.

Read the definition before you plan a menu around it. Low-risk food is food whose pH or water activity means it will not generally support the growth of pathogens or the production of their toxins without temperature control. Low-risk home-prepared food is low-risk food that is only processed, prepared, packaged or labelled by an individual in that individual's private dwelling, and that does not contain any meat, poultry, seafood or unpasteurized milk. Grilled chicken, beef, salmon, eggs and cream sauces are all outside it.

The rest of that exemption is just as tight. A low-risk home-prepared food operator may only handle the food at the private dwelling where it is prepared or at a farmers' market, nobody may resell it, and no other business may use it as an ingredient. Every package carries a statement that the food was prepared in a home kitchen that is not subject to inspection, a statement that it is not for resale, the operator's name, business name and email or phone, the product name, and the date it was prepared.

So a home kitchen works for baking, chocolate, brittles and jams. For meals, it does not. The City of Calgary makes the same point from the licensing side: prepared meals and pre-portioned meal services require a commercial kitchen, any business involving the sale, preparation, manufacturing or storage of food needs an Alberta Health Services location inspection, and a food-related business that uses a kitchen in the home falls into the class of home occupation you have to apply for.

For a meal menu the choice is between renting time in an approved commercial kitchen and taking a space of your own. Renting is where most Alberta meal prep businesses start: a commissary or shared kitchen already meets the construction requirements and already holds its permit, and you pay for the hours you cook and the storage you use. Before you sign, ask what the health authority expects of you as a separate operator in that building, how much refrigerated and freezer space you get, whether supplier deliveries can be received on your cook days, and what hours you can be in the room.

Taking your own space starts with plan approval. A person must not construct or make alterations to a commercial food establishment unless the plans and specifications have been approved by the executive officer. Talk to an environmental public health officer before you sign the lease, not after. They will tell you what the space needs, and that conversation is free.

The regulation then sets what the room has to be: soundly built and in good repair, designed so it can be cleaned effectively, with handwashing stations kept supplied, refrigeration and hot-holding equipment capable of holding the required temperatures, and enough of it for the food you make. Plan the equipment around a full cook day, not around an average one.

The permit is the thing that lets you operate. An application is made in writing to the regional health authority for the area, which is Alberta Health Services and its environmental public health offices. The authority issues the permit once the establishment is approved and the permit fee — an amount set by the Minister — is paid. A permit's term must not exceed one year, so plan on renewing it annually.

A permit names one establishment and one operator. It is not transferable, so buying somebody's kitchen does not buy their permit, and it is posted in a conspicuous place in the establishment where it can be easily seen. If you move, change what you make, or change who operates the business, the authority has to be told.

Apply well before you want to open. Ask the environmental public health office for the kitchen's address what they need from you and how long they expect to take, and ask for the current fee rather than working from a figure you read somewhere.

The requirement scales with the size of the shift. When there are five or fewer food handlers working on the premises, the operator of a commercial food establishment must ensure at least one individual who has care and control of the establishment holds a certificate issued by the Minister confirming completion of a food sanitation and hygiene training programme, or a document the Minister considers equivalent. When there are six or more food handlers on the premises, at least one member of the management or supervisory staff must hold that certificate and be present at the time.

The Government of Alberta publishes the list of courses approved to meet that section, in classroom and online formats, and it is updated periodically. Take a course from that list; a certificate from somewhere else may not count. Train more than one person before you open, because one certificate is a single point of failure on a Sunday cook day.

A commercial food establishment must obtain all food that is liable under law to inspection by Canada or Alberta, or by an agency of either, from a source that is subject to that inspection. In practice that means meat, poultry, fish, eggs and dairy come from licensed suppliers with the paperwork to prove it. Keep the invoices and file them by cook date. Where the chicken came from is a normal question at an inspection, not a bad sign.

The regulation makes a narrow allowance for premises that cut and wrap uninspected meat for its owner, and that meat must be clearly labelled, separated from all other food and identified as not for public consumption. It is not a route to putting game or a neighbour's beef on your menu.

The regulation names transport directly: all high-risk food must be stored, displayed and transported at not more than 4 °C or not less than 60 °C, and food that must stay frozen has to remain frozen while it is stored, displayed, packaged or transported. Your delivery van is inside that rule.

An Alberta winter breaks the cold chain in the other direction. At −30 °C a load left in an unheated van does not spoil, it freezes solid, and a customer opening a cracked tray of frozen sauce is still a refund. A Calgary chinook can take the same route from −20 °C to +8 °C between the first stop and the last. Insulated bags work both ways, a thermometer in the vehicle tells you which way today is going, and the temperature gets written down at the start and end of the route.

Then there is the distance. Calgary and Edmonton are big, flat and spread out, and a route that wanders between quadrants burns an hour in transit for nothing. Group stops tightly, set a delivery window customers can plan around, decide early whether you serve acreages outside the city limits and what that costs, and take a photo at each drop. In January, doorstep deliveries need a time the customer is actually home.

Decide how the business is owned before you take money: a sole proprietorship, a partnership or a corporation, registered with Alberta's corporate registry, with a trade name registered if you trade under something other than your own or the corporation's legal name. Get a business number from the Canada Revenue Agency and open a bank account that is not your personal one.

Alberta municipalities licence businesses, and food is a licensed activity. Calgary requires a business licence and location approval for every home-based food business, puts a food business that uses a kitchen in the home into the home occupation class you have to apply for, and requires an Alberta Health Services location inspection for any business involving the sale, preparation, manufacturing or storage of food. Other cities run their own version. Ask each one you operate in. Arrange general and product liability insurance, which shared kitchens and landlords ask to see, and tell your motor insurer that the vehicle delivers.

Alberta has no provincial sales tax, so the whole question is GST at 5%. Basic groceries are zero-rated, but the Canada Revenue Agency's memorandum on basic groceries treats a lot of prepared food as taxable: salads unless canned or vacuum sealed, sandwiches and similar products other than when frozen, platters and arrangements of cheese, cold cuts and similar food whether or not they are ready to eat, and food or beverages heated for consumption. Food supplied under a catering contract is taxable as well.

The rule about six servings is narrower than people repeat. It applies to listed single-serving items — baked goods under 230 grams, puddings under 425 grams, beverages under 600 millilitres, ice cream under 500 millilitres or 500 grams — where a package of fewer than six is taxable and six or more is not. It is not a general rule that a box of six meals becomes zero-rated.

On registration, you are a small supplier while worldwide taxable revenue stays at or under $30,000 over four consecutive calendar quarters. Go over $30,000 in a single quarter and you stop being a small supplier on the day of that sale; go over gradually and you stop at the end of the month following the quarter in which you crossed it. Either way you register within 29 days of your effective date. Place of supply for goods is the province where you deliver them, so a run into Saskatchewan or B.C. takes that province's rate.

This guide is not tax advice and Mealforma does not file your returns. How your particular menu is treated is a question for the CRA and your accountant, and it is worth asking before you set prices, because the answer decides whether tax sits on top of your price or comes out of it.

Labelling for prepackaged food is federal. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency's checklist sets out the core: the common name on the principal display panel, the net quantity in metric units, a list of ingredients in descending order by weight with priority allergens named, a best-before date where the durable life is 90 days or less, the name and principal place of business of the responsible party, and a Nutrition Facts table unless an exemption applies. Mandatory information appears in both English and French.

Health Canada's priority allergens are eggs, milk, mustard, peanuts, crustaceans and molluscs, fish, sesame seeds, soy, sulphites, tree nuts, and wheat and triticale. Declare them in the ingredient list or in a "Contains" statement immediately after it. "May contain" is only for allergens that may be present unintentionally despite reasonable precautions; it is not a substitute for declaring what you put in.

The Nutrition Facts exemption is the part that catches meal prep. Food sold only in the retail establishment where it was prepared and processed from its ingredients is usually exempt, but the exemption is lost if the label carries a nutrient content claim or a health claim, or a vitamin or mineral is added, or the product is ground meat. Meal prep sells on calories and protein, which is a nutrient content claim. Plan on carrying a Nutrition Facts table, printed from the recipe version the kitchen actually cooked.

Most meal prep businesses sell by the week. A customer picks a plan — 10 meals, 15 meals — chooses meals before a cut-off, and receives them on set delivery days. The cut-off is what makes the business work: it tells you exactly what to buy and cook before you spend anything on food.

Cost each meal from its recipe, in Canadian dollars: ingredients at the price you actually pay, the tray, the sleeve, the label. Then add kitchen rent, labour, delivery and card fees per meal before you choose a price. Subscriptions smooth the weekly swings and make purchasing predictable; one-off orders and add-ons fill the gaps.

Once orders arrive every week, the work is keeping the menu, the cut-offs, the kitchen's quantities, the labels and the delivery routes in step. Mealforma is meal prep software built for that: an online store with weekly subscriptions, production quantities worked out from locked orders, labels printed from the recipe version the kitchen cooked, and each day's route. Delivery zones, fees, cut-offs, tax rate and whether prices include tax are settings you edit yourself, and the storefront can run in English and French.

It is a flat monthly price in Canadian dollars, and it never takes a percentage of your sales. Each company on Mealforma gets its own Postgres database from the day it signs up. What Mealforma does not do: it does not certify anyone, it does not obtain permits, it does not file your returns, and nothing here is legal advice.