What paperwork does a bakery need, and where should it keep it?
A bakery needs six groups of paperwork: its food business registration or licence, food safety certificates and food safety program, insurance, staff training records, supplier specifications with allergen statements, and its contracts and policies. Keep them in one place, with an expiry date against everything that lapses and access set by who needs to see each one. What counts as required depends on where you trade, so check the details with your council or food authority.
What each country asks for
United Kingdom. Register your food business with your local council at least 28 days before you start trading. Registration is free and applies to home kitchens too. A food hygiene certificate is not compulsory, but you must make sure food handlers are trained and supervised, and a Level 2 Food Hygiene course with its certificate is a common way to show it. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland your council inspects and awards a food hygiene rating from 0 to 5.
Australia. A home-based business selling direct to customers notifies or registers with its local council; in New South Wales, one selling to cafes or shops for resale notifies the NSW Food Authority instead. In Victoria, councils charge a registration fee and registration renews every year. Under Standard 3.2.2A, food service, catering and related retail businesses handling unpackaged, ready-to-eat potentially hazardous food must appoint a certified Food Safety Supervisor, with a certificate from the past five years, and keep the record.
New Zealand. Under a Food Notice issued by MPI on 30 October 2025, home-based makers and decorators of shelf-stable cakes sold directly to customers are exempt from registering a food control plan or national programme until 31 October 2028, but still need to be able to trace ingredients and run a recall. Cakes that need refrigeration, and cakes made for resale, still register under the Food Act 2014.
United States. Home baking runs under each state's cottage food rules. Texas, for example, requires a food handler course for cottage food operators, and New York requires a home processor registration with its Department of Agriculture and Markets. Keep the permit or registration and any training certificate together. The state-by-state detail is in cottage food law.
Canada. Rules are provincial. In Ontario, a home-based business making low-risk foods such as cakes, cookies and breads tells its local public health unit before it starts selling.
The full list
Six groups, one place
- Registration and licences. The current certificate, renewal date and any conditions, plus market or event permits.
- Food safety. Each person's certificate with its issue or expiry date, your written food safety program if you have one, and its evidence: inspection reports, pest control, equipment calibration, test and tag.
- Insurance. Policy schedule and certificate of currency for public and product liability, plus equipment, vehicle and workers' or employer's cover where it applies. Venues and wholesale buyers ask for the liability certificate by name, often days before an event.
- Staff training. Food safety and allergen training per person, dated, and ID or right-to-work documents, kept as the most private files you hold.
- Supplier specifications. Each ingredient's specification with its allergen statement. When a supplier reformulates, file the new version next to the old one rather than over it, because these are the source of every allergen declaration you make.
- Contracts and policies. Lease, supply and venue agreements, your customer terms, and your allergen, refund and cleaning policies. The clauses a custom order needs are in what a cake order contract should include.
Keeping it under control
Put an expiry date on everything that lapses and a reminder a month before. Keep old versions, because when the question is what was true on a past date, the old version is the answer. Let the whole team open cleaning and allergen policies, and keep insurance, contracts and staff ID private.
ibakepro keeps all of this in the Vault, in Business, on every plan with unlimited files. Each document has a category, an expiry date that flags it before it lapses, and a level: the whole team, managers and the owner, or the owner only. Insurance, contracts and ID start private, staff see a watermarked copy rather than the original, and every view is logged. Contracts go out for signature from the same place. On the Growth and Business plans, Compliance holds your daily temperature, cleaning and corrective action records, with an inspector pack you can print for any date range. More on the Vault.