A specialty food store, or gourmet food store, sells foods a grocery doesn't carry: cheese cut to order, charcuterie, olive oils, local jams and sauces, chocolate, imported crackers. Opening one starts with a retail food license, and the line is what you sell: in Idaho, the example's state, a shop offering only factory-sealed, shelf-stable packaged food falls outside the food code, while cutting cheese or slicing salami makes it a food establishment, licensed at $200 a year. Then the makers: local products can be bought outright at wholesale, which earns more a jar but ties up cash and leaves the unsold jars yours, or taken on consignment, the maker paid a share when each one sells. Homemade food, made in a home kitchen without a license, is its own case: in Idaho a store can sell it only as the maker's designated agent, named in writing, without taking ownership, so on consignment, and on separate shelves with signs, coolers included. In the example below, a Boise store compares buying and consigning five local products. Below are the steps, the rules, the example, and a free calculator.
The short version
- A specialty food store sells foods a grocery doesn't: cheese, charcuterie, local and imported goods.
- In Idaho, only factory-sealed shelf-stable food falls outside the food code.
- Cutting cheese or slicing meat makes it a licensed food establishment, $200 a year in Idaho.
- Local products: bought outright at wholesale, or consigned for a share of each sale.
- Buying earns more a jar, but ties up cash and the unsold jars are yours.
- Homemade food in Idaho: only as the maker's designated agent, on consignment, on separate shelves.
- TaroStack tracks the cheese by the pound and every product's lot and date. More below.
The steps
| Step | What to settle |
|---|---|
| The range | Cheese and charcuterie, pantry goods, local makers, gifts; what the grocery nearby doesn't carry |
| The license | Whether cutting, slicing or a cooler makes the shop a food establishment |
| The cheese case | A refrigerated case, a walk-in or reach-in, a slicer, wires, a label scale |
| Suppliers | Specialty distributors for imports, local makers direct |
| Local makers | Bought outright or consigned, with the maker's license or homemade status checked |
| Gifts | Boxes and baskets built from the shelves, for holidays and companies |
The cheese side in full is in cheese shop business plan, and the rules for a consignment agreement in consignment agreement template.
The rules in Idaho
| Rule | Where |
|---|---|
| License fee | $200 a year for a food establishment other than temporary, intermittent or mobile; $250 with more than two licenses on one premises (Idaho Code 39-1607) |
| Covered | Retail markets, delicatessens and health food stores (IDAPA 16.02.19) |
| Not covered | Low-risk food establishments offering only non-TCS foods, factory-sealed and prepackaged (IDAPA 16.02.19) |
| Homemade food through a store | The store as a designated agent, named in writing by the maker, taking no ownership (S1283, Idaho Code 37-203) |
| On the shelf | Homemade products physically separated from the rest, coolers and storage included, with signs (37-205) |
| Where | Sales within Idaho only (37-205) |
What a homemade producer may make and how it's labeled is in Idaho cottage food laws. Other states draw the line between homemade and store shelves differently, and many keep homemade food out of stores altogether. This is general information, not legal advice.
An example: a Boise specialty food store
Camel's Back Provisions, a made-up specialty food store in Boise, Idaho, I use in these examples, opens with a cheese counter, so it's licensed. Its opening costs come to $78,900: a cheese case and cooler $14,000, shelving and fixtures $12,000, opening inventory $25,000, build-out and signs $15,000, the lease deposit and first month $7,000, a slicer, scale and label printer $4,500, the register $1,200, and the $200 license. Then five local products:
| Product | Retail | Wholesale | Sold a month | Profit, bought | Profit, consigned at 70% to the maker | Cash tied up, bought |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Huckleberry jam, licensed maker | $12.00 | $7.00 | 40 of 48 | $200.00 | $144.00 | $336 |
| Hot sauce, licensed maker | $10.00 | $6.00 | 30 of 36 | $120.00 | $90.00 | $216 |
| Chocolate bars, licensed maker (65%) | $8.50 | $4.75 | 52 of 60 | $195.00 | $154.70 | $285 |
| Homemade granola | $11.00 | 20 of 24 | Consignment only | $66.00 | $0 | |
| Homemade huckleberry fudge | $9.00 | 12 of 20 | Consignment only | $32.40 | $0 |
Buying the three licensed products outright earns $515 a month against $388.70 consigned, for $837 of cash on the shelf, and the store owns what's left at month end. Consigning them all earns $487.10 with nothing tied up. The two homemade products can only be consigned, on their own marked shelf, and the fudge, 12 of 20 sold, is the one to watch. The store buys the jam and chocolate, which sell steadily, and consigns new products for their first three months. How a maker counts consigned stock is in consignment inventory example.
Get the calculator
Download the consign or buy calculator. One sheet: each local product's retail and wholesale price, the maker's share on consignment, and how many are stocked and sold a month; the store's profit each way, the cash tied up buying outright, what's left at month end and which way earns more fill in, with a blank wholesale price for consignment only. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
Forty local makers, half bought and half consigned, cheese cut by the pound from wheels with their own dates, and gift boxes built from the shelves: a spreadsheet can't tell you what's left of a wheel or which jam is near its date.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack tracks what the store buys: cheese by the pound, every product by lot and date.
Buy by the wheel, sell by the pound. A wheel is received by weight with its lot and date, and cuts come off it by the pound; TaroStack does the conversion.
Dates, oldest first. Each delivery is received with its best-by date, and the oldest goes out first; what expires is an adjustment with its reason, reported by reason and item.
Gift boxes as recipes. A holiday box is a recipe of what's on the shelves, so building twenty boxes takes the jars and crackers out of stock.
Reorders in days of cover. The reorder list shows each product in days of cover, with each supplier's lead time and minimum. TaroStack connects to Square.
| The job | Notebook | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| What's left of a wheel | Weigh it | Stock by the pound |
| Jars near their date | Read the shelf | Best-by dates, oldest first |
| Twenty gift boxes | Pull jars, forget to write it down | A recipe that takes them out of stock |
| What to reorder | Walk the shelves | Reorder list in days of cover |
Receiving, lots, recipes and the reorder list are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.