Online Sweet Shop/Grazing Boxes

mrstoughturtle

Hi All,

I'm considering setting up an online sweet shop which would included like grazing sweet box type offerings. It would be set up from my home and can't see clarity as to what I would need to be compliant? Any thoughts on where to start?

There's going to be nothing officially cooked/baked in my home, just prepacking of sweets into bags/boxes, etc.

Thanks

Darc19

Several places do that and it was very much a fad a few years ago.

I think the boat has already sailed on that one

mrstoughturtle

Darc19 wrote: »

Several places do that and it was very much a fad a few years ago.

I think the boat has already sailed on that one

Thanks for the feedback but I haven't seen what I'm thinking of doing on Irish sites yet - If you have then would appreciate you sharing where you've seen it. thanks!

Darc19

There's probably a reason for that - most likely accessibility and population size.

Due to how densely populated the UK is, travel to a shop can be a chore and take quite a bit of your time. Many are also time poor due to commute times, thus they have taken to subscription boxes for all sorts of things.

Here popping into a supermarket is easy and far less time consuming, thus accessibility to grazing treats is very easy and quite low priced. The same for ingredients for meals etc. Thus the subscription box business that works so well in the UK, does not work well here.

Many who tried it have stopped do it and the few that do it have it as a product within a larger store of items whereas in the UK there are companies that simply deal in a few types of boxes and nothing else.


It was the same in the 70's 80's & 90's - catalogue shopping in the UK represented over 10% of comparison goods sold there. In Ireland the sales did not even register as 0.5% and there were several catalogues here (Grattans, Littlewoods & Freemans) - I remember selling to Freemans in the UK, they bought 8 items and their order was in the high thousands of each item. A similar item was sold to John Lewis with almost 100 stores and their order was about 20% of the freeman's order. That give you an idea of how big they were over there.

mrstoughturtle

Darc19 wrote: »

There's probably a reason for that - most likely accessibility and population size.

Due to how densely populated the UK is, travel to a shop can be a chore and take quite a bit of your time. Many are also time poor due to commute times, thus they have taken to subscription boxes for all sorts of things.

Here popping into a supermarket is easy and far less time consuming, thus accessibility to grazing treats is very easy and quite low priced. The same for ingredients for meals etc. Thus the subscription box business that works so well in the UK, does not work well here.

Many who tried it have stopped do it and the few that do it have it as a product within a larger store of items whereas in the UK there are companies that simply deal in a few types of boxes and nothing else.


It was the same in the 70's 80's & 90's - catalogue shopping in the UK represented over 10% of comparison goods sold there. In Ireland the sales did not even register as 0.5% and there were several catalogues here (Grattans, Littlewoods & Freemans) - I remember selling to Freemans in the UK, they bought 8 items and their order was in the high thousands of each item. A similar item was sold to John Lewis with almost 100 stores and their order was about 20% of the freeman's order. That give you an idea of how big they were over there.

Thanks for the feedback. Fully aware of how it works in the UK and how different we are as countries. I've over 10 years experience in sales and marketing dealing with UK companies and bringing them over to Ireland.

My original question is related to clarity on setting up a business like this at home and what is required to be compliant? I can see on line about if the home business is cooking/baking but not about handling sweets like jellies, etc.

Thanks!

westgolf

Have a look at mrcandy.ie

Patsy167

The story of how Graze grew might provide inspiration on what is possible - https://octopusventures.com/insights/scaling/story-of-graze/#:~:text=Graze%20was%20conceived%20by%20Graham,post%2C%20straight%20to%20their%20desks.

Best Wishes with the venture!

Darc19

mrstoughturtle wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback. Fully aware of how it works in the UK and how different we are as countries. I've over 10 years experience in sales and marketing dealing with UK companies and bringing them over to Ireland.

My original question is related to clarity on setting up a business like this at home and what is required to be compliant? I can see on line about if the home business is cooking/baking but not about handling sweets like jellies, etc.

Thanks!

Ah, I took from the initial post that you just came up with the idea but didn't know anything about processes.

Anything food related and the premises has to be registered with the HSE. If you are repackaging, you will most likely need product liability insurance.


Good luck with it.

BabysCoffee

mrstoughturtle wrote: »

Hi All,

I'm considering setting up an online sweet shop which would included like grazing sweet box type offerings. It would be set up from my home and can't see clarity as to what I would need to be compliant? Any thoughts on where to start?

There's going to be nothing officially cooked/baked in my home, just prepacking of sweets into bags/boxes, etc.

Thanks

Good luck with the venture

Are you considering marketing it as a "Grazing Box"? Personally I find this to be very off putting and think it has connotations of animal feed.

Greysloan

There have been quite a few Grazing Box Companies and Online Sweet Shops popping up in Ireland over the last couple of months. I notice a lot of restaurants/hotels and local coffee shops are offering grazing boxes. There is huge competition in online sweets at the moment so I would definitely recommend doing your research on that one.

With regards to your question on being compliant in tbe home, you would definitely need to be HSE registered once you are repackaging anything at all even if you're not cooking it yourself. It's free to do.

A HACCP course or a minumum level 2 food safety training course is also a must.

And I would agree with getting product liability insurance too.

DanT88

Well I think you should start with the layout of this online shop. How big do you want it to be? How much do you plan to produce for sale? I can tell you one thing for sure, you need comprehensive advertising. I personally went to https://upvotes.space/ when I needed good advertising for my business. They do good comprehensive advertising on various social networks. Including they do it on Reddit. The advantage of such advertising is that it looks as natural as possible. At first glance, it even looks more like a real tip than a direct ad.