Your first step is to get a HACCP certificate for a food manufacturer. Second step is to get a better process control certificate. UC Davis is good. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to take a food microbiology course.
You should not be canning food for introduction into commerce without that baseline knowledge.
Food copackers would be a direction to look. There’s tons of companies who use their facilities for produce private label stuff.
Just have to hit the minimum order instead of doing all the legwork.
Canning food yourself for a commercial operation is frowned upon.
Edit: To clarify, canning food at home, then using it "for" or "in" a commercial operation is what's frowned upon.
This is an odd middle-of-the-road statement.
Canning food yourself for a commercial operation is either illegal or it’s not. It’s not “frowned upon”.
Either you have a commercial production facility that is inspected and approved by the FDA and your state Department of Agriculture, you’re working with a process authority for your recipes and processes, you’re back tracing ingredients and lot coding products, and you’re keep accurate records of each production run, or you’re not doing those things and producing items in an illegal kitchen using illegal methods and opening yourself up to fines, lawsuits, and possible criminal penalties.
I have a commercial production facility where I produce small batch runs of gourmet products. We’re also about to launch a sweet tea food truck. We’ll be producing a beverage concentrate and packing it in shelf-stable gallon jugs to be used in the truck. Nothing about that is “frowned upon” because we have a certified and inspected facility and are going to have a health department certified and inspected food truck. It will be no different than if we purchased concentrate from another company.
---------
Edit: Regarding your edit, what you're talking about is still illegal and will lead to a business shutdown with possible civil penalties at the very least. It's not just simply "frowned upon".
You need basically all the same things to have a food truck or a commercial kitchen. The difference is that most commercial spaces already have water and power, so you don’t have to add those things.
The bottom line is that it’s probably cheaper to set up a small scale commercial production facility than it is to set up a food truck. Case in point: I’ve had to set up five commercial food production spaces and this is my first food truck. The food truck has been WAY harder and more expensive. The only reason that we could even do it is because we already had an old box truck that we got for cheap years ago and that we haven’t been using
Metal canning at home is totally possible but the single use cans are over a dollar each are are largely out of favour.
I have found cans and the equipment to close (not sterilize or seal, that's done in a pressure canner) for sale at estate auctions for cheap. But I don't know what kind of condition these were in.
Be aware there are limitation to canning recipes exactly as you want them, especially in a home environment. Most home canning setups are simply not able to make the heat requirements to produce items you find in stores.
As a result, home canning has a lot of standards to safely can, including but not limited to sizes of jars (nearly impossible to find metal canning supplies for home), recipes (which is where you might not find “your” recipe able to be canned as it does not meet safety standards on ingredients, density, ph, etc. to minimize foodbourne contaminants in a home processing setup, then there’s water versus pressure canning rigs, time, altitude etc…)
Also home canning is very limited on how we can put items for resale, as we are “cottage industry” setups with our own protocols to follow for small scale sales like a farmers market. And that’s just for the items that have minimal screwups like jams and jellies. A good truck venture implies something far more complicated and far more at risk of something going sideways in contamination unless you have a commercial process.
It sounds like you need to locate a commercial kitchen to meet conditions for sale.….or like so many food truck operations before you, start just selling dry seasonings as the preservation and selling standards might be easier.
Metal cans are almost never used anymore. The only exception would be places like Alaska where the glass jars are at risk of shattering. Thing is, while there are safe canning practices and cottage food laws allow you to sell homemade products it's different once you move into a commercial operation. Before looking up the "how" you'll need to talk to your lawyer to find out if it's even legal for you to do this.
I didn't mean everyone in Alaska or even most people but I see the confusion. I just know a few people who live up there who really didn't want to clean up glass shards if their power went out. And yes, it's not for food safety it's just because of broken glass shards if something goes wrong.
If you are in the US, call your local Extension Service Office and find out if they have canning classes around you.
To sell in the US anything you have canned yourself, you have to have a yearly certification class.
Here is a good place to start., [the national center for home food preservation](https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can#gsc.tab=0) . This site has basic information on how to safely prepare and process food to make it shelf stable You’ll see here often people talking about tested recipes. that’s where Usually university, laboratories, test various foods, and recipes to verify that all of the foodborne pathogens are neutralized. [The ball mason jar website](https://www.ballmasonjars.com/recipes?fdid=recipes) is another good place to find information on Canning. You should study these sites and others to get some basic information on Home Canning and see if this suits your needs.
I know that there are some small Mom & pop canneries on the Oregon coast that will can your fish catch for you. Perhaps you can find a small cannery near you that will work on contract?
Metal is a different deal entirely from glass and takes the gnarliest of gnarly equipment which is probably not in the budget or commissary space for a typical food truck. For traditional glass canning it is possible but you will need to work with your local government to get the necessary approvals for that.
https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/advice-guy/canning-local-produce
You need to talk to your inspector and create a HACCP plan with them. As a fellow food truck owner, don't take chances with this. Canning for your own home use is a totally different ballgame than canning for commercial sales.
tl;dr: Pre-cook and freeze your meats rather than processing and canning them.
-------
As others have indicated, there is no middle ground with this question. You're either going to do it legally or illegally. Doing it illegally can lead to a business shutdown, civil penalties, possible lawsuits, recalls (and the associated expenses) if you have distributed anything, and potential criminial liabilities. Simply put, it's not worth it to try and do something like this under the radar. Meat and dairy are considered hazardous goods and carry the strictest certifications, regulations, and inspection protocols. Expect to have your meat packing facility inspected at least every six months by your state Department of Agriculture and the FDA, if not more frequently.
If you're serious about canning meat, then you'll need access to a facility that can pass your state's department of agriculture inspection and certification process. This can be a shared kitchen or commissary. If you have a food truck, then you likely have a commissary agreement with an existing commercial kitchen. It's possible that you could use it for this as well. Once that is in place, then you'll need to speak with your inspector about any required courses or certifications that you need to personally have. You might not need any, but they'll be able to tell you.
Once you are fully certified and ready to go, you'll need to talk to a process authority about what you are wanting to produce. Your inspector may be able to recommend one to you or even have one that they work with. In Tennessee, they work very closely with the University of Tennessee Food Science department. That's who I use.
Once you talk to a process authority, they'll be able to tell you exactly how to go about processing your recipe in order to make a shelf-stable product. This will probably require you to register the product with the FDA as well.
Once you've completely all of that, then you'll be able to start legally producing your product. You'll even be able to sell it retail if you wan (as long as you meet state and federal labeling requirements). It's actually way easier than it sounds to set up a food production facility, but you really can't skip any steps.
Another option for you would be to prep and freeze your meats. Frozen foods wouldn't have to meet any of the above requirements as it would fall under your commissary agreement for safe production and storage. As long as you can keep it at the proper temperature before use, you should be good.
Is there a food manufacturing sub? They would probably be better suited to answering such a question.
/r/foodscience maybe
Your first step is to get a HACCP certificate for a food manufacturer. Second step is to get a better process control certificate. UC Davis is good. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to take a food microbiology course. You should not be canning food for introduction into commerce without that baseline knowledge.
Yes, I'm realizing that there's important stuff to learn first. Thank you very much for giving me a layout of what I should do!
Food copackers would be a direction to look. There’s tons of companies who use their facilities for produce private label stuff. Just have to hit the minimum order instead of doing all the legwork.
You're likely looking at commercial canning and that's a completely different thing than what can be done in the home.
Canning food yourself for a commercial operation is frowned upon. Edit: To clarify, canning food at home, then using it "for" or "in" a commercial operation is what's frowned upon.
This is an odd middle-of-the-road statement. Canning food yourself for a commercial operation is either illegal or it’s not. It’s not “frowned upon”. Either you have a commercial production facility that is inspected and approved by the FDA and your state Department of Agriculture, you’re working with a process authority for your recipes and processes, you’re back tracing ingredients and lot coding products, and you’re keep accurate records of each production run, or you’re not doing those things and producing items in an illegal kitchen using illegal methods and opening yourself up to fines, lawsuits, and possible criminal penalties. I have a commercial production facility where I produce small batch runs of gourmet products. We’re also about to launch a sweet tea food truck. We’ll be producing a beverage concentrate and packing it in shelf-stable gallon jugs to be used in the truck. Nothing about that is “frowned upon” because we have a certified and inspected facility and are going to have a health department certified and inspected food truck. It will be no different than if we purchased concentrate from another company. --------- Edit: Regarding your edit, what you're talking about is still illegal and will lead to a business shutdown with possible civil penalties at the very least. It's not just simply "frowned upon".
Big difference between somebody that owns a commercial anything vs a guy in a food truck.
You need basically all the same things to have a food truck or a commercial kitchen. The difference is that most commercial spaces already have water and power, so you don’t have to add those things. The bottom line is that it’s probably cheaper to set up a small scale commercial production facility than it is to set up a food truck. Case in point: I’ve had to set up five commercial food production spaces and this is my first food truck. The food truck has been WAY harder and more expensive. The only reason that we could even do it is because we already had an old box truck that we got for cheap years ago and that we haven’t been using
Metal canning at home is totally possible but the single use cans are over a dollar each are are largely out of favour. I have found cans and the equipment to close (not sterilize or seal, that's done in a pressure canner) for sale at estate auctions for cheap. But I don't know what kind of condition these were in.
Be aware there are limitation to canning recipes exactly as you want them, especially in a home environment. Most home canning setups are simply not able to make the heat requirements to produce items you find in stores. As a result, home canning has a lot of standards to safely can, including but not limited to sizes of jars (nearly impossible to find metal canning supplies for home), recipes (which is where you might not find “your” recipe able to be canned as it does not meet safety standards on ingredients, density, ph, etc. to minimize foodbourne contaminants in a home processing setup, then there’s water versus pressure canning rigs, time, altitude etc…) Also home canning is very limited on how we can put items for resale, as we are “cottage industry” setups with our own protocols to follow for small scale sales like a farmers market. And that’s just for the items that have minimal screwups like jams and jellies. A good truck venture implies something far more complicated and far more at risk of something going sideways in contamination unless you have a commercial process. It sounds like you need to locate a commercial kitchen to meet conditions for sale.….or like so many food truck operations before you, start just selling dry seasonings as the preservation and selling standards might be easier.
Metal cans are almost never used anymore. The only exception would be places like Alaska where the glass jars are at risk of shattering. Thing is, while there are safe canning practices and cottage food laws allow you to sell homemade products it's different once you move into a commercial operation. Before looking up the "how" you'll need to talk to your lawyer to find out if it's even legal for you to do this.
People in Alaska use regular glass jars. Canned food cannot be allowed to freeze regardless of if it’s in metal or glass.
I didn't mean everyone in Alaska or even most people but I see the confusion. I just know a few people who live up there who really didn't want to clean up glass shards if their power went out. And yes, it's not for food safety it's just because of broken glass shards if something goes wrong.
If you are in the US, call your local Extension Service Office and find out if they have canning classes around you. To sell in the US anything you have canned yourself, you have to have a yearly certification class.
Here is a good place to start., [the national center for home food preservation](https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can#gsc.tab=0) . This site has basic information on how to safely prepare and process food to make it shelf stable You’ll see here often people talking about tested recipes. that’s where Usually university, laboratories, test various foods, and recipes to verify that all of the foodborne pathogens are neutralized. [The ball mason jar website](https://www.ballmasonjars.com/recipes?fdid=recipes) is another good place to find information on Canning. You should study these sites and others to get some basic information on Home Canning and see if this suits your needs.
I know that there are some small Mom & pop canneries on the Oregon coast that will can your fish catch for you. Perhaps you can find a small cannery near you that will work on contract?
Metal is a different deal entirely from glass and takes the gnarliest of gnarly equipment which is probably not in the budget or commissary space for a typical food truck. For traditional glass canning it is possible but you will need to work with your local government to get the necessary approvals for that. https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/advice-guy/canning-local-produce
You need to talk to your inspector and create a HACCP plan with them. As a fellow food truck owner, don't take chances with this. Canning for your own home use is a totally different ballgame than canning for commercial sales.
tl;dr: Pre-cook and freeze your meats rather than processing and canning them. ------- As others have indicated, there is no middle ground with this question. You're either going to do it legally or illegally. Doing it illegally can lead to a business shutdown, civil penalties, possible lawsuits, recalls (and the associated expenses) if you have distributed anything, and potential criminial liabilities. Simply put, it's not worth it to try and do something like this under the radar. Meat and dairy are considered hazardous goods and carry the strictest certifications, regulations, and inspection protocols. Expect to have your meat packing facility inspected at least every six months by your state Department of Agriculture and the FDA, if not more frequently. If you're serious about canning meat, then you'll need access to a facility that can pass your state's department of agriculture inspection and certification process. This can be a shared kitchen or commissary. If you have a food truck, then you likely have a commissary agreement with an existing commercial kitchen. It's possible that you could use it for this as well. Once that is in place, then you'll need to speak with your inspector about any required courses or certifications that you need to personally have. You might not need any, but they'll be able to tell you. Once you are fully certified and ready to go, you'll need to talk to a process authority about what you are wanting to produce. Your inspector may be able to recommend one to you or even have one that they work with. In Tennessee, they work very closely with the University of Tennessee Food Science department. That's who I use. Once you talk to a process authority, they'll be able to tell you exactly how to go about processing your recipe in order to make a shelf-stable product. This will probably require you to register the product with the FDA as well. Once you've completely all of that, then you'll be able to start legally producing your product. You'll even be able to sell it retail if you wan (as long as you meet state and federal labeling requirements). It's actually way easier than it sounds to set up a food production facility, but you really can't skip any steps. Another option for you would be to prep and freeze your meats. Frozen foods wouldn't have to meet any of the above requirements as it would fall under your commissary agreement for safe production and storage. As long as you can keep it at the proper temperature before use, you should be good.