6 Things I’ve Learned Growing my Small Online Food Business

So far, so good.

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After my internship at a food company in Portugal, I began building my own online food business in February 2024.

Here are the lessons I have learned so far.

1. It Sounds Simple in Theory But It’s Not in Practice

The idea is pretty simple.

1. I buy food in bulk.
2. I repackage in smaller portions and stick my label.
3. I ship when people buy.

Nothing complicated.

And yet, I’ve run into thousands of issues with no obvious solutions!

Here are a few of them to give you a flavor:

1. Tech: I initially went with WordPress/WooCommerce because I needed strong SEO and translation capabilities. But it was so complicated to build tech-wise (I had to inject code written by ChatGPT, which slowed the website) that I ended up having to move the whole thing after 6 months of work to Shopify, to my despair.
2. Legal issues: It’s not the 1800s anymore, you cannot simply “sell things”. You need a mountain of authorizations, a company number, and a bunch of other expensive crap before you’ve even earned the first euro. It pissed me off…