Are you setting up a bakery? This page contains instructions on starting a bakery business.
Image: Tussitaikurit Oy
If you want to set up a bakery, consider at least the following:
1. Find suitable premises: Once you find premises you like, check with the municipal building supervision authority if it can be used as a bakery. Alternatively you can find out if it is possible to change the premises to fit your plans. If changing the premises is possible, apply for a building permit for the renovation. It is advisable already at this stage to also contact the municipal food control authority. You can consult with the municipal food inspector to ensure the premises are definitely suitable for your intended purpose.
A bakery must have enough water fixtures and room for washing hands and for cleaning equipment. It is possible that your facility needs to have enough room and water fixtures for handling raw materials, depending on what kinds of products your bakery produces.
2. Plan your operations to match your premises: Make a sensible plan for receiving and storing raw materials used for baking. Also consider carefully where and how you bake (handling equipment and raw materials, hygienic working methods). You cannot have cross-contamination between raw materials and finished products.
3. Find out what your staff require: Bakery personnel who handle unpacked, readily perishable foods are required to have hygiene passports, work clothing and a health status statement. Readily perishable foods include products such as rice pasties and cream cakes.
4. Submit a food premises notification: Submit a food premises notification to the food control authority of the municipality where your bakery is located no later than 4 weeks before you start operations. You can get a notification form from your municipality’s website or the food control authority, which will provide you with advice and guidance. You can also submit a notification in the electronic notification service of environmental health (ilppa). The food control authority registers the bakery, and in the future, the bakery will be subject to regular food control. Both the registration and the food control are chargeable official activities.
5. Plan your own-check activities: Own-check system is a method of risk management for your bakery. Use it to plan in advance how to manage operational risks and how to fix potential mistakes. The more risks related to food hygiene the bakery has, the more requirements there are concerning owncheck control. Own-check activities involve some accounting requirements.
6. Important everyday considerations:
- Handle, store and transport foods hygienically. Protect your products and keep your facilities clean. Make every effort to ensure that the food is not contaminated with microbes or ingredients that are not supposed to be in the product. For example, gluten-free products may never be mixed with
regular products. - Store each product at the appropriate temperature while observing other relevant conditions.
- Ensure that all materials coming into contact with food are food safe and suitable for the intended use. This way, you can make sure that no harmful chemicals are introduced to the food.
- Prepare written recipes and keep them up to date. When you are creating recipes, take into account the requirements of food legislation regarding ingredients such as additives, flavourings and enzymes, salt, and other ingredients that may be added.
- Ensure that measures to reduce acrylamide are included in your bakery’s activities.
- Make sure that you provide correct and adequate information about your food products when you sell them directly to consumers or deliver them to a store, restaurant, industrial kitchen, etc.
- Only use permitted nutrition and health claims in food marketing. You must not mislead consumers.
- Make sure that your products are traceable. It must be possible to trace foodstuffs and their raw materials at each stage of production, manufacturing, and distribution.
- Also make sure you know what to do if you know or suspect that a foodstuff you are selling is not safe.
Here is a checklist on what to do from the perspective of food legislation. (pdf)