Ever wondered and tired of thinking what food business is appropriate to your preference? With the over-growing food industry, there are lots of ventures you can dive in to become part of it. Previously, we have written an article of 5 Reasons Why You Should Start E-commerce Business That Actually Drive Sales which can help you see the benefits of starting an E-commerce business.

In this article, you will be exposed holistically on a detailed and latest food business ideas. Then you will be deciding why you should choose the venture, when you should start, and why did not start the business yet?

How to start a food business?

Firstly, you need to know what your passion is, are you someone that likes to bake, or cooks a cuisine meals, or maybe love to make unique viral foods.

Once you have found your niche, then you can decide on what menu to serve, research the laws and regulations at your place, and pull up a detailed plan on how to start.

Here’s a list on how you can begin your food business:

Prepare a thorough business plan (how much capital you want to invest, your monthly financial plan, location, suppliers, license, staffs, and etc).
Get an honest review from family and friends. Take note on their comments and do what it takes to improve or add to your menus.
We get it, you are so excited to start the business plus getting good reviews from your fellas, but do know that it is better to begin small, focus on your handful specialty menus instead of going all out and eventually exhausted from your own ideas.
Receive with open hands reviews from normal reviewers v.s 20% active reviewers that often have a high impulse on trying new vendors like you.

10 Food Business Ideas To Consider

Satay Business

The smell of hot charcoal and barbecued meat… there is a nutty, smoky, and sweet fragrance of honey aroma. When the meat are done grilling and cooked to perfection, it will be tender and flavourful.

Why do you need satay business? Satay is a well known affordable snacks that is favoured by everyone. You can easily get them on the street, pasar malam, and some restaurant vendors. The price is quite cheap too and able to buy in large amount of satays.

The way to prepare it also easy as you need to cut the meat in small pieces and mix with some herbs and flavouring such as salt. Then the meat will be cooked and barbecued on a skewer. You will then put some topping such as honey to make it smell good and tasty.

Satay business is a high demand within buyers in Malaysia as satay is so affordable and fit most local taste buds doesn’t matter what race you are. Everyone is going to love satay. There are multiple successful satay business in Malaysia are such as Satay Kajang Haji Samuri and Zaini Satay. You can look up on their way of running business such as the location setup, how many satays are being sold per day, the price range, and what types of meat they use, and how many varieties of satay they provide. Good luck!

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Image: Satay the favourite barbecued snacks in Malaysia

Food Stalls/Kiosk

Food stalls or kiosk are another local favourite to go when starting a business. As setting it up is easy and not require much of extra works and you do not need to worry about finding customers as the location itself will have lots of potential customers.

Examples of food stalls that you can open are Nasi Lemak stall, Pisang Goreng stall, Takoyaki stall, and Nasi Campur stall. For kiosk, there are multiple options you can go to from making your own menu such as Nasi Ayam, Roti Canai, Teppanyaki, Western, Italian, and so on.

However, there are laws and regulations in Malaysia that you should adhere to such as you are not allowed to put the stall near the fire hydrant or few distance from the pedestrians’ walkway. For kiosk, you can setup it in an enclosed space such as food court or hawkers space e.g The Paddock and Lepaking. Lastly, it is compulsory for you to get the hawker license or permit from the official enforcement in your city for a smoother business run.

Baby Food Business

Parents nowadays are too busy to provide proper foods for their babies and toddlers. Therefore, we offer a solution on how they can save time by buying baby foods.

To start on this business, you need to know babies and toddlers mostly need natural foods for their growth and health. Therefore, it is vital that the foods that we prepare should not have added preservatives, colouring, and sugar. For the cooking methods, there are multiple ways you can try such as roasting, steaming, and pureeing then properly pack it for extra freshness and an extended expiration date.

Homemade Sambal Merah & Sambal Hijau

We cannot deny that nowadays a lot of sambal business has gotten into the business game. However, what makes you set apart from the rest? You first need to do research on what USP your product going to focus, who is your target market, and what is your customers’ preferences.

To start off, you can make the sambal and give free taster to your closed ones to review or even to strangers. After you get all the reviews, you will know what are most people’s preferences and how to run your business to meet your target market’s needs.

Image: Sambal Nyet by Khairul Aming: The most selling out sambal in Malaysia

Chocolate Jar

You do not have to think twice where to get chocojar nowadays as there are many sellers and brands produce this product niche. However, we can call this product niche as too saturated as there are many competitors out there.

If you do have passion in making chocojar, then you need to have a strong mental and knowledge. Study of the ingredients and quality, target market, budget, and how do you plan for your first release.

To make your product unique, make the chocolate sauce a bit tastier and different than others, put variety of toppings and base, and an attractive bottle & packaging.

For a saturated market, it is easier for you to penetrate into the market by offering an agent and stockist system, and also affiliate. From there, it will help you to climb the game ladder and benefits others in terms of career and income.

Food Canning Services

Food canning services help those that do not have time to cook and prepare a proper meal for themselves. Such thing as taking out the meat and fish out from the fridge, defrosting it, cutting it, and even cooking it consume lots of time. Most people are already tired after work and need to handle the family, therefore some are actually willing to spend on this.

Such recommendation for canning foods are blended chillies, blended onions, mix of onions, sardines, meats and etc.

Cookies

Cookies are another local favourite business. As it already have lots of demands in market as people love to have it all-time snacks plus cookies are usually easy to carry around to fit the tummy anytime.

The procedure to make the cookies itself is easy and very well-prepared. Nowadays, there are lots of guidance that you can look up and watch on the internet to make a top notch taste cookies. Whenever you are ready, you can roll in the market at any time.

Lunch Box Set

Usually, this type of food business cater to those who does not have time to cook themselves a proper meal. Whether they are busy, had many family members to feed, or always on the go are the ones usually love to buy ready-made meals.

Research the menu first, prepare it, and you are ready to sell.

Example of lunch box set are pastas, nasi campur, laksa, mee rebus, and etc. There are considerable lots of players out there that you can look up to especially on Tiktok. Try reach organically first on Tiktok and Facebook & Instagram (postings or community group) then you can go for paid ads.

Image: One of locals favorite dishes ‘Laksa’

Dessert Business

Other than chocojar, dessert business are another niche that are too over saturated. Anywhere you go around the internet, Instagram, or ecommerce sites such as Shopee, there will be many sellers that are already offering variety of desserts and chocojars.

Even so, there are still many offering unique desserts such as artisan desserts, artisan ice cream, homemade chocolates, and homemade cakes. You can easily find these types of creative sellers especially on Tiktok and Youtube.

Gourmet popcorn

Popcorn is simply everyone’s favourite snacks. You can eat it during the movie, the hangouts, or even as all-time snacks. Starting the business is simply low cost and affordable. First off, you can try to have a variety on flavours such as caramel, chocolate, butterscotch, seaweed, or cheese to meet multiple people’ tastes.

There are many existing local and international popcorn brands in Malaysia such as Eng’s and Garrett that you can look up on their business such as where usually they open the location, how much is the range price, and how many variety do they offer in their menu. In that way, you can come up with your own thorough business plan to embark on this popcorn business.

How Social Leap Can Help With Your Food Business Ideas

Starting your own business is both profitable and enjoyable. However, the journey is not as easy as ABC. You need to do the management, accounting, organic reach, and also digital marketing. The rest you can do it on your own however for digital marketing there are lots of aspects you need to look on and have specific strategies.

Rather than you hire your own Facebook Ads Specialist, Tiktok Ads Specialist, Google Ads Specialist, Creative Designer or even renting a space to place them, and the list goes on… which the spendings can reach up to RM20K monthly. With our help, you can cut it more than half of the costs as we provide all the digital marketing essentials.

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