How to Start Kids Cooking Classes

 If you enjoy teaching your own child how to cook, you should think about how to start kids cooking classes as a business. This is a great way to start a new career, or generate a bit of extra income for your family. When you’re setting up a new business, you’ll need to have a clear mission statement in mind, a knowledge of any legal implications that will affect your business and the correct resources to get started.

What is your Kids Cooking School Mission Statement

When you’re thinking about how to start kids cooking classes, you’ll need to have a clear idea of what you’re trying to achieve. Appropriate mission statements include:

1. To give children a lifelong love of cooking - If this is your aim, then you’re likely to be thinking either one-to-one or small group tuition, possibly run from your own home. The recipes will be fairly simplistic.


2. To train a future generation of chefs - To do this, you may need to think about hiring premises. You’ll need an extensive repertoire of high-quality recipes, and a good knowledge of tips and shortcuts for your pupils to learn.


3. To help children become healthy eaters - This idea is becoming more and more popular in recent years. Not only focus on why we should eat healthy but how and include appropriate recipes.

Whatever your mission statement, make sure that you stick to it when you’re advertising and enrolling pupils.

You can take different angles to your cooking business as well such as teaching cooking lessons, hosting kids cooking parties, theme cooking units or a combination of the above keep this in mind when choosing your mission statement, creating a business name and advertising.

Legal Implications for Kids Cooking Classes

You need to research the relevant legal information when you’re finding out how to start kids cooking classes. Legal issues will change depending on where you live and the location of your classes. The amount of legal advice you’ll need will increase as the number of pupils that you have on roll increases. If you do decide to engage the services of a lawyer, you need to ask them:

1. What is the maximum number of children I can have in my own home as part of my business?
   
   If you set yourself up as a cooking business for children, there will be legal limits on the number of children you can be responsible for at any one time. This number will also be affected by the size of your kitchen.
   
   
2. Who is responsible if a child hurts themselves?
   
   This is going to be your biggest concern when teaching kids how to cook. On the whole, if you go through the appropriate safety warnings first, and you get a waiver signed by the child’s parents, then you should be safe from legal action from angry parents.
   
   Here is an example and help in creating a cooking waiver. (Please Note: This is a pdf document that you will need Adobe Reader to read and will open in a separate window.)
   



3. Are there any foods that I can’t cook with?
   
   Foods such as chicken and eggs obviously need a lot of care when you’re cooking, and you’ll need to find out if there will be any legal backlash if you do use ingredients like these in your recipes. Include these questions on your information sheet or waiver with your enrollment.
   

You might find this homebased business checklist a good start.

Kids Cooking School and Classes Supplies

The final step when you’re thinking about how to start kids cooking classes is the cooking supplies that you’ll need. If you’re teaching multiple children at once, you’ll need to have a large initial outlay on multiple kids utensils for them to use.

You may also need to invest in new countertops that will withstand a heavy usage, and a dishwasher to help you improve your turnaround times.

Help in Starting a Kids Cooking Business

You can use our kids cooking curriculum ebooks for teaching classes. They are designed for this purpose and I myself use them for afterschool classes and summer cooking classes.

We have more teaching help and tips for teaching kids to cook including what to cook and tips for teaching kids.

Do you already teach cooking classes or kids cooking lessons? Include it in our kids cooking class directory.


Worrying about how to start kids cooking classes shouldn’t stop you from trying it out. It doesn’t have to be an internationally recognized success, and you can start as small as you like. You’ll need to get some help with the advertising, even if it’s just getting some flyers ready for your local businesses.

You need to give the other parents confidence in your abilities, so you should think about what information and designs you would want if you were to enroll your child in a cooking business.