Selling Tea and Coffee From a Vintage Caravan

by Louise
(Surrey)

Hi, my sister owns a vintage caravan and we would like to be able to sell tea and coffee and cake plus home made jams from it at various events such as fetes, fairs and the like.

We would like to provide two or three tables with chairs outside the caravan. We have no idea what permissions or licences would be needed in order for us to provide this service. Where do we start? Can you please help?

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Apr 15, 2019
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starstarstarstarstar 		Any advice caravan catering
by: Anonymous

Hi,
I have just started to renovate a carlight cassata caravan into a small travelling cake shop, and have a few questions if you could help or advise...
1. Do you need both hot and cold water for hand washing? We were told by someone who caters that hot isn’t required but can’t understand why? We are only serving on the van there’s no prep.
2. Where can you park to avoid having to get a license ?

Thank you for reading and any advice
Rebecca
May 13, 2016
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starstarstarstarstar
by: David-

Hi Joe,

Please confirm with the local council, insurance provider’s landowners (event organisers) will permit caravan conversions to trade. From past experience this is not the case as the build, chassis and structure are not suitable for a working catering trailer.


You may also find this post helpful:Caravan Conversion


Best of luck
David
Apr 17, 2016
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starstarstarstarstar 		Coffee caravan
by: Joe

Hi guys
I'm in the process of building my specialty coffee caravan

Are most sites powered or will I need a genarator most of the time?

I have la marzocco linea coffee machine 2500w a grinder 1200w 2000w water boiler and two fridges and also don you know if councils allow a caravan as a catering vehicle in regards to licensees etc
Thanks
Joe
Jan 31, 2014
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starstarstarstarstar 		Catering Caravan - Be Warned
by: David

Hi Louise,

Nice to hear from you!

The first thing you will need to do is to register your food business with the local council before you start trading.

You should then go on a level 2 Food and Hygiene course, which is pretty straightforward to understand. Once you past the test you will then get your F&H certificatewhich you will also need to trade.

If you are not going to be handing any cooked foods then a Level 1 F&H course should be sufficient, but since it’s not that much extra money to take the test I recommend taking the Level 2 course.

Find a pitch and get permission to trade by contacting various event organisers in the areas that you want to trade in.

Once you have a pitch, the next thing you need to arrange is some public liability insurance. This is not legally required but you are expected to have this in place since you will be working with members of the public. This will cover you against any claims that may be brought against the business.

It then a matter of getting your food vehicle insured since this will now be a working asset and you don’t want to take the chance of not protecting your asset from various hazards i.e. theft, fire etc.
It’s then a matter of figuring out what catering equipment is needed, from what you have mentioned here, this would probably mean at least a hot water boiler and fridge for milk, tea and coffees. And probably some sort of display cabinet for the various cakes that you will be offering.

For this you will then need to buy the required catering equipment and then contact a LPG engineer to have it installed and tested. This is more or less the whole process in a nut shell.

Important Note: Before you proceed with everything mentioned here - please find out if a caravan can be used as a catering food vehicle. Some council’s won’t give a licence to a caravan which means that you should not continue unless you are going to source a purpose built catering food vehicle.

You should find this post helpful:

Caravan Snack Bar

Best of luck
David

PS. Get my free guide on Starting a Mobile Catering Business Guide

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