

Ask HN: Starting a drink business. - Rabidmonkey1

So, HN, I know this is a pretty technical site in terms of programming, entrepreneurship, etc, but it looks like I'm starting a more traditional drink business with my brother. Background info really quickly: I'm 23, he's 20, and we have created a health shot from natural products that is really quite awesome (not going into too much detail here; it's not relevant. All I have to say is it's not an energy drink).<p>We plan on selling 50 ml bottles (about 2 oz) to local health markets to begin with, and see how things go from there.<p>What I want to know is this: what do I need to know about US health and food regulation before I get into this? I'm literally going to be preparing and bottling this in my kitchen for a while and selling directly to these local markets when I start out. Is there anything I should I be aware of before I start that would have the power to stop me?<p>EDIT: Starting out, it looks like I will be using these bottles: http://www.sks-bottle.com/340c/fin14e.html. Good enough, or will I need something better? (in terms of being able to preserve the contents?)
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michael_dorfman
For god's sake, lawyer up.

I don't even want to think about the liability you're walking into if you're
not careful.

Is there some reason you don't want to try to sell the recipe to established
firms who already have the infrastructure in place?

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jlangenauer
The first thing you'll want to look at is HAACP, which is required by the US
FDA for certain types of food (amongst them, juices, which your product may
fall in to). There are likely other laws covering labelling - you may have to
pay a laboratory to analyse the product for energy & fat content, sodium,
sugars etc.

Have a look at:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazard_Analysis_and_Critical_Co...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazard_Analysis_and_Critical_Control_Points)

and:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutrition_facts_label#United_St...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutrition_facts_label#United_States)

There's probably other things too

(Disclaimer: I'm Australian, and not an expert in these things)

