Preserving for Profit: How to Sell Your Homemade Jams, Pickles & Ferments in the UK

Preserving for Profit – book cover

Turn your kitchen preserves into income with straight-talking, step-by-step guidance. Learn exactly how to sell legally in the UK — registration, hygiene, labelling, pricing and selling — so you can trade confidently from a normal home kitchen.

  • Exactly how to register with your council (food business)
  • What environmental health look for at home
  • Crystal-clear UK labelling: name, ingredients, allergens, QUID, dates, lot codes
  • Pricing, margins, costings, packaging & stall setup

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What’s inside

  • Start here: are you a food business? (what triggers registration)
  • Registering with your local authority & your first EHO visit
  • Food hygiene at home: layout, cleaning schedules, HACCP-lite & traceability
  • Labelling that passes checks: legal name, ingredients list, allergens (bold), QUID, net weight, durability dates, lot/batch codes, name & address
  • Jam, jelly, marmalade, chutney & ferments: product-specific points (sugar, acidity, storage)
  • Allergy & intolerance: cross-contamination controls and signage for markets
  • Pricing & profit: cost of goods, overheads, break-even, margin targets
  • Packaging & presentation: jars, lids, tamper evidence, labels that stick & scan
  • Selling routes: markets, pop-ups, local shops, online—what you must have in place
  • Record-keeping: supplier logs, batch sheets
  • Simple templates: batch sheet, cleaning log, pricing calculator
  • Troubleshooting: failed set, flat flavours, short shelf-life, label rejections

Why I wrote this book

I kept seeing people with fantastic homemade preserves — jam, chutney, curds, pickles and ferments — who never sold a single jar because they were scared of the rules. Most advice online is either American, outdated, or written in a way that makes it sound impossible from a home kitchen.

I wrote Preserving for Profit to give you the clear UK steps with no jargon, no myths, and no scare tactics. If you want to trade legally, confidently and without guesswork, this book lays out every requirement in plain English.