Home bakery start-up checklist
Say what you'll bake and where, and the steps to selling it from home in Ontario line up in order: your city, insurance, the kitchen, Public Health's form, food handler training, labels and HST. Your menu sorts into likely low-risk and needs-the-fridge, you draw the kitchen's floor plan for the form, and the questions for your inspector are written for you.
Help and background Back to the tool
How it works
- 1 Tap what you'll bake, or type your own, and tick anything with a filling, cream or icing that needs the fridge.
- 2 Say where you'll bake: your own kitchen, a separate one at home, or a rented shared kitchen, and which health unit you're in.
- 3 Follow the steps in order, marking each one to do, started or done, with a note of who you spoke to.
- 4 Draw your kitchen's floor plan to send with Public Health's notification form, and print it on one page.
- 5 Ask your inspector the questions written from your menu, jot down the answers, and print the checklist for the fridge.
Free, with no account. Everything is worked out on this page: your menu, steps, notes, plan and questions are never sent to us or put in a link. Remember keeps them on this device, and only while it's on.
Good to know
- Do I need a separate kitchen?
- It depends on where you are. Ontario's guide to starting a home-based food business sets out the exemptions for low-risk food. Region of Waterloo's food business page asks for a kitchen separate from your personal one. Ask your health unit before you spend money on a kitchen.
- How does it know what's low-risk?
- It doesn't decide. It sorts what you tick: anything with a filling, cream or icing that needs the fridge, or kept in the fridge, goes in "needs the fridge", and anything canned or jarred goes in "ask your inspector". Your public health unit decides what's low-risk for your kitchen.
- Is the floor plan good enough to send?
- It shows the room's size, a scale and a numbered list of what's in it, printed on one page. The sizes it starts with are only starting shapes, so measure yours. Ask your health unit what else it wants to see.
- Is this legal or food-safety advice?
- No. This is guidance, not legal or food-safety advice, from the sources as read in October 2026. Rules change, and every health unit sets out its own steps: find yours and follow what it says.
More in Stay on the right side of the rules
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CASL checker
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Save it: your drinks, prices and words
Takeout & delivery alcohol check
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Save it: your corkage, days and prices
Event and market food safety kit
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Save it: your event, menu, packing and temperature log
Allergy order protocol
Take an allergy order by table number, read it back, and let the kitchen say whether it can be made safely. Every clean-prep step, the pass and the table get signed with initials and a time while the ticket rides a rail to the guest, and the dishes are checked against your allergen labels. Print flags for the plate and a poster for the kitchen wall.
Save it: the open order, its sign-offs and tonight's orders
Return & exchange policy
Your refund, exchange and final-sale rules, worded for the counter sign, receipts, website and gift slips, with a checker for the till.
Save it: a policy shown at checkout
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Accessible service policy
The accessible customer service policy every Ontario business with staff needs.
Save it: accessibility info on your page
Privacy kit
A plain privacy policy, a one-glance label, camera and Wi-Fi signs, and the letters for when a customer asks.
Save it: a policy hosted on your page
Required signs finder
Every sign your shop has to put up, room by room, with the official ones linked and the rest ready to print.
Save it: your signs checklist, kept up to date
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Food label checker
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Save it: your label checklist, kept with your items
Nutrition facts estimator
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Save it: your recipes and what's in each ingredient, in your account
Fridge & freezer log
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Save it: your temperature log, round by round
Cook, hold & cool log
Follow each batch from the pot to the fridge. Probe it and the reading is judged on the spot: cooked hot enough, held at 60 °C, and cooled through 20 °C and 4 °C in time, with a clock and a forecast for each line. Prints the day for the binder.
Save it: every batch kept in your account, day after day
Receiving check
Check each delivery at the door: probe the cold and frozen lines, tick what's wrong, and take or refuse each one. The credit to ask for writes itself, prices that crept up are flagged against your price book, and every supplier gets a scorecard.
Save it: every delivery kept in your account for a year, for the inspector
Sanitizer & dish machine log
Walk the dish machine, the sinks and the wiping buckets in one round. Each reading is judged on the spot against the food rules' lines or your label's, a miss stays open until a retest passes, and the dish machine's rinse is watched for drift before it fails. Prints the week for the binder.
Save it: every station and check kept in your account
Pre-service line check
Walk the line before the doors open: probe the cold and hot wells, check labels, tastes, stock and tools, station by station. A miss can't be signed off until it's fixed, food out of the cold runs on a two-hour clock, and you see which rail keeps running warm.
Save it: your line and every check kept in your account
Prep and use-by labels
Tap what you just made, opened or thawed and its label prints: the time, your initials, and a use-by worked out from how long you say it keeps, with a colour and the day's three letters. A board shows what's due today and tomorrow, and what keeps getting thrown out.
Save it: your items and the board remembered on this device, if you choose
Staff allergen briefing
Mark your menu against Canada's priority allergens, a tap a square, and print a one-page briefing for the shift that leads with what changed since the last one. Sort the menu for a guest's allergy, and pass the tablet round for a five-question quiz from today's menu, signed with initials.
Save it: your menu and the sign-offs remembered on this device, if you choose
Opens in early 2027
Team size rules
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Save it: a nudge before you cross the next line
Snow & salt log
Tap when the snow stops, and again each time you clear or salt. A clock to your town's sidewalk deadline, the Region's salt guide, and a log to print.
Save it: a winter log kept for you, season after season
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First aid kit builder
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Save it: a reminder every three months to check each box
Job post builder & checker
Write a job ad that follows Ontario's posting rules and welcomes everyone, or check one you have. Then print the window sign and the interview scorecard.
Save it: your ads, ready to post again
Opens this winter
Home childcare rules check
Add the children you care for and see every day of the week against Ontario's limits, minute by minute. See the year ahead as they grow, and print each family's notice.
Save it: the children's weeks, and when each notice was given