How to start a meal prep business in Ontario

Ontario has nothing like the cottage food laws of some American states. Ontario Regulation 493/17 (Food Premises), made under the Health Protection and Promotion Act, applies to every food premises except boarding houses providing meals for fewer than 10 boarders, certain events run by religious organizations, service clubs and fraternal organizations, and farmers' market food vendors. A domestic kitchen is not on that list. Toronto Public Health states it directly: a home kitchen in which food is being prepared for commercial purposes is a food premises, and the medical officer of health has to be notified.

What that means in practice is decided by your local public health unit. Ottawa Public Health runs a low-risk home-based food business programme and publishes the line it draws: most breads and buns without meat or cream fillings, most baked goods without custard, chocolate, hard candies, brittles, fudge and toffees are low risk. It also says businesses preparing and selling medium- to high-risk food will not be permitted to operate in residentially zoned locations, and that those foods must be prepared in commercially zoned and inspected food premises.

Meal prep is medium- to high-risk work. Cooked chicken, rice, beef, fish, eggs and dairy are potentially hazardous foods under the regulation, which means they need time and temperature control. Expect the answer from your health unit to be a commercial kitchen. Two requirements in the regulation are worth reading before you argue the point: no room where food is prepared may be used for sleeping, and the premises must have refrigerated space adequate for the safe storage of potentially hazardous food.

Most Ontario meal prep businesses start in a shared commercial kitchen, sometimes called a commissary or a kitchen incubator. You rent cooking time and storage by the hour or the month in a building that already meets the construction and equipment requirements and is already inspected. Before you sign, ask what arrangement the health unit expects from you as a separate operator in that building, how much refrigerated and dry storage you get, whether supplier deliveries can be received on your cook days, and what hours you can be in the room.

Leasing your own space gives you the schedule and room to grow, and costs more up front. Toronto Public Health reviews building plans for newly constructed or renovated food premises, and other health units do the same. Talk to a public health inspector before you sign a lease, not after: they will tell you what the space needs to pass, and that conversation is free.

The regulation sets out much of what the room must contain. Utensils are cleaned and sanitized in mechanical equipment or in a three-compartment sink (a two-compartment sink is allowed only in the narrow case the regulation describes). Handwashing stations must be convenient for food handlers and used for handwashing only. Refrigeration and hot-holding equipment must be large enough for the food you hold and fitted with accurate thermometers that are easy to read.

Ontario writes the rules and the local public health units enforce them: Toronto Public Health, Ottawa Public Health, Peel Public Health and the rest. The one for the kitchen's address is the one you deal with, and it is the first call to make.

A person who intends to begin operating a food premise gives notice to the medical officer of health, and the regulation says that notice includes their name, contact information and the location of the premises. Toronto requires it before starting. Peel asks for at least 14 days' notice before opening. After the notice, an inspector contacts you and explains what the premises has to meet.

Inspections are public. Toronto posts results on DineSafe, Peel posts them under its Food Check Peel by-law, and the regulation requires every operator to post inspection results as the inspector asks. Plan for the first inspection to happen before you sell anything, and for repeat inspections after that.

The regulation requires every operator of a food service premise to make sure at least one food handler or supervisor who has completed food handler training is on the premises during every hour it is operating. A food service premise is one where meals or meal portions are prepared for immediate consumption, or sold or served in a form that permits immediate consumption on the premises or elsewhere, which covers a meal prep kitchen selling ready-to-eat meals. Confirm with your health unit which category your operation falls into before you plan the roster.

Food handler training means training given by a local board of health, by an agency of a board of health, or through a programme the Ministry has recognized as equivalent to its food safety training standards. Certificates from Ontario health units are recognized across the province, and Peel Public Health says a certificate is valid for five years. Ask your health unit which courses it accepts before you pay for one.

Food that is liable under law to inspection by Canada or Ontario has to come from a source subject to that inspection, and the operator keeps records of food purchases on the premises for at least a year after the purchase date. Keep the invoices filed by cook date. An inspector asking where the chicken came from is a normal question, not a bad sign.

Meat gets its own rule. The only meat permitted at a food premise is meat from an animal inspected and approved for use as food under Ontario Regulation 31/05 (Meat) or the federal rules, stamped and labelled accordingly.

If your menu includes ready-to-eat processed meats, ask your inspector whether they count as manufactured meat products. Where they do, the regulation adds written food safety procedures approved by the medical officer of health or a public health inspector, and records of what was made, from whose product and when, kept for a year.

Potentially hazardous food must be distributed, stored, transported, displayed, sold and offered for sale at an internal temperature of 4 °C or lower, or 60 °C or higher. The regulation allows the food out of that range only for the time needed to prepare, process and manufacture it, up to two hours. Food meant to be sold frozen stays frozen. That rule does not stop at the kitchen door; the delivery is part of it.

Winter is not the easy season people assume. A van left standing at −15 °C will freeze meals that were never meant to freeze, and a heater aimed at the load does the opposite. Carry a thermometer in the vehicle and record the temperature at the start and end of the route, not only in the kitchen.

Then there is the building. A Toronto condo tower has one loading dock, and it is often booked for moves. Some concierges take food deliveries and some refuse them. A tight downtown street in January has snowbanks where you planned to stop. Ask buildings what they allow before you promise a delivery window, build the route around the stops that have a dock, and take a photo at each drop. That photo settles most of the messages that start "it never arrived".

Decide how the business is owned before you take money: a sole proprietorship, a partnership or a corporation, registered with Ontario's business registry, and a business 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.

Arrange insurance early. Shared kitchens, landlords and wholesale customers ask for general and product liability cover before they will deal with you, and delivering your own meals means your car insurance has to know what the car is doing. Ask the city whether a municipal business licence applies to what you are doing; that answer differs between municipalities.

Basic groceries are zero-rated in Canada. Prepared food often is not, and meal prep sits close to the line. The Canada Revenue Agency's memorandum on basic groceries is the document to read. It treats salads as taxable unless they are canned or vacuum sealed; sandwiches and similar products as taxable other than when frozen; platters and arrangements of cheese, cold cuts and similar food as taxable whether or not they are in a form suitable for immediate consumption; and food or beverages heated for consumption as taxable. Food supplied under a catering contract is taxable as well.

The rule about six servings is narrower than people repeat. It applies to listed items sold as single servings — baked goods such as cakes, muffins, pastries, tarts, cookies and doughnuts under 230 grams, puddings under 425 grams, beverages under 600 millilitres, ice cream under 500 millilitres or 500 grams. Fewer than six of those in a package is taxable; six or more is not. It is not a general rule that a box of six meals becomes zero-rated.

Ontario's rate is 13% HST, and the place of supply for goods is the province where you deliver them, so an order driven into another province takes that province's rate. On registration, the CRA treats you as a small supplier while your 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 after the quarter in which you crossed it. Either way you register within 29 days of your effective date.

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. They are declared 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 a Nutrition Facts table, and print it 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 change yourself, and the storefront can run in English and French where your customers need it.

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.