I bet you know that one delicious thing that you make the most - whether it's a jam, a salsa, a cookie, a Kombucha, a cupcake, or something else. People ask for it time and time again and you're the hit of the party when you bring it. So you might be asking yourself or everybody might be telling you that you should start that food business. You should turn your hobby, this delicious hobby into a food business. Well, I am going to give you four questions to ask yourself before you start and before you jump in, whether you should actually start that food business. 

If you are considering starting a food business, ask yourself these four questions before you spend another dime pursuing this dream. I'm Sari Kimbell. I'm the founder of Food Business Success and I have helped hundreds of entrepreneurs start and start and grow their profitable food businesses. A food business can be a very expensive hobby. And my goal is to help you avoid wasting time and money. Let's jump into the four questions.

The first question is, is your product defensibly unique? Let's just take salsa for example, because where I live, there are many local brands of salsa. If you're going to make salsa, you need to stand out on the shelf, at the grocery store, online or at the farmers market as something really different. 

What are the things that you could say about that salsa that would really help you stand out? It can't just be a good salsa. Maybe it's great branding or where the ingredients are sourced from or it's ahead of industry trends. Whatever it is, before you jump in, you need to ensure that the recipe is unique.

The second question is, do you know yourself? Take inventory of what you're good at and how you want to be spending your time in this business. Do you want to be the one actually cooking and making the product? Do you want to be the one going to the farm and sourcing the ingredients? Do you want to be creating new recipes? Do you want to be the one selling it? Where do you want to be spending your time? 

You need to explore what your goals are for the first couple years of your business to make sure that it fits into your expectations for your lifestyle and what your life looks like because starting a business does take a tremendous amount of time and you need to know what you want before you jump in.

The third question is, are you ready to go to work? Starting a food business is going to take not just time, but brain power and labor to get going. 

Most of you are probably working a 40 hour a week job now and can't leave it just to start your food business. Or some of you love your job and don't want to leave it. That means you'll be working on your food business on the side. That means late nights and weekends at the farmer's market.  

Every food business, unless you start out with a ton of cash, starts really small. Which means you really need to hustle and work to be able to build the business into something that's profitable. 

So before you jump into a new food business, you want to make sure that it's something that will jive with your goals and lifestyle before you commit to all the work. 

The last question is do you have some money to put into this business? You are going to need to bring in money early on to get the business off the ground. Whether that's your personal money or money borrowed, this is essential to starting your food business. 

We're not just talking time anymore, we're also talking about a financial investment. So before you start your business, you want to have a strong financial plan to ensure that it's something that you can support with your idea. 

So are you ready to start your food business? Have you answered those questions and decided that you still want to go forward? If you have, then check out my business checklist. It's a step by step guide of all the things that you need to do to start that food business.

Also, if you want to join a community of other food business entrepreneurs, I highly encourage you to check out my Facebook group, you can ask to join that group and be among other food business entrepreneurs.