Practical Resources for Small Food Producers
Whether you’re just getting started or already selling to retailers, producing safe, consistent, and profitable food requires more than a great recipe. It requires good systems.
The OtherFoods Kitchen Food Production Guide is a growing collection of practical articles written for small food producers. These guides are based on real-world experience working alongside food entrepreneurs in a Department of Agriculture certified shared commercial kitchen.
Our goal is simple: help you spend less time wondering what to do next and more time producing great food.
Whether you sell at farmers markets, through wholesale accounts, online, or from your own storefront, these guides will help you build a safer, more efficient, and more profitable business.
Featured Guides
Getting Started
Department of Agriculture Certification
Understand what certification means, what inspectors typically look for, and how good recordkeeping makes inspections easier.
Food Safety & Compliance
Lot Tracing
Learn how ingredient lots, production batches, and finished products are connected so recalls can be handled quickly and confidently.
Cleaning & Sanitation
Cleaning isn’t just about passing inspections. Learn practical procedures that reduce contamination and improve consistency.
Business Management
Food Cost (COGS)
Understand the true cost of producing your products and learn why many food businesses unintentionally underprice their products.
Commercial Kitchens
Shared Commercial Kitchens
Learn how shared kitchens work, who they’re designed for, and how they can help businesses grow without investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in their own facility.
Recipe Costing
What You’ll Learn
- How to calculate the true ingredient cost of a recipe
- How to determine cost per batch and cost per unit
- Why ingredient yields and units of measure matter
- How recipe costs affect pricing and profitability
- How to keep recipe costs current as ingredient prices change
Read More about Recipe Costing
Inventory Management
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
Best for: Small food manufacturers, commercial kitchens, bakeries, caterers, and packaged-food businesses
What You’ll Learn
- What food producers should track in inventory
- How inventory affects cash flow and profitability
- How to establish simple inventory procedures
- How lot numbers and expiration dates fit into inventory
- How recipes and production can automati
Read More about Inventory ManagementShelf Life
Shelf Life
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Best for: Packaged-food producers, commercial kitchens, bakeries, refrigerated-food producers, and frozen-food manufacturers
What You’ll Learn
Why packaging, temperature, and water activity can dramatically affect shelf life
What shelf life actually means
The difference between food safety and food quality
Factors that determine shelf life
How small producers can establish a reasonable shelf-life testing program
Nutrition Labels
What You’ll Learn
- What a Nutrition Facts label communicates
- When nutrition labeling may be required
- What information is needed to create a label
- How recipe accuracy affects nutrition calculations
- Why serving size is important
- What small-business exemptions may apply
Read More About Nutrition Labels
Preparing for Your First Inspection
Your first food-production inspection can feel intimidating.
It becomes much less intimidating when you understand what an inspection is really testing.
An inspector is not simply looking to see whether your kitchen appears clean on inspection day.
The bigger question is:
Does this business have a reliable system for producing food safely?
Read More About Preparing for your First Inspection
Food Safety Plans
A food safety plan should not be a binder that gets created for an inspector and then sits unopened on a shelf.
It should describe how your food business prevents problems every day.
For many growing food businesses, developing a formal food safety system is also the point where informal habits have to become documented procedures.
Who cleans the mixer?
Read More About Food Safety Plans
Batch Production
Making ten packages of a product is cooking.
Making hundreds or thousands of packages consistently requires a production system.
Batch production creates that system.
A batch is a defined quantity of product made during a particular production run using a controlled recipe and documented ingredients.
Read More About Batch Production
Wholesale Readiness
Selling your food product to a grocery store, specialty shop, café, or regional retailer can feel like a major milestone.
It is.
But getting a retailer to say “yes” is only the beginning.
Read More About Wholesale Readiness
Packaging for Retail
Getting a food product onto a retail shelf requires more than putting your product in an attractive package.
Your packaging has to protect the food, communicate important information to the customer, work with your production process, survive transportation and storage, and meet applicable labeling requirements.