I’ve been thinking of turning one of my hobbies - making mead, wine, sauerkraut, and hot sauces - into a business. It’ll be small scale, something to supplement another business I hope to run with my wife. Does anyone have any idea of potential pitfalls for doing the alcohol side of this? I looked into the Tobacco & Alcohol Administration Act, but it seems very much geared towards large-scale manufacturing. Sounds like the costs involved would outweigh the potential revenue for a smaller operation.
Can anyone with any actual experience in this field chime in, or point me towards some who might be able to help? Wife would help but she’s busy navigating her own legal maze for the place she wants to start.
Sauerkraut and hot sauce should be relatively straightforward.
You don’t want to go into alcohol production, as the legal framework is really only set up for large operations. The only way to do it legally on a small scale is to go with a contract manufacturer who has a properly set up and registered factory for alcohol production.
Anita’s out of Taidong makes some nice hot sauces. Had some with Mexican food at Dos Tacos in Hualien. Maybe you can get some ideas looking at what they’re doing. (https://www.anitas.tw/). Couldn’t get the link to embed. There’s an English version to their website if the link doesn’t direct you to that.
This is also my understanding. The topic was raised a few times in the past.
The legislative framework is/was set up to ensure only favoured monopolies are allowed to get involved in the production of alcoholic drinks. Importing, OTOH, seems to be a lot easier, so that might be an option if you’re really into this: set up production elsewhere, and apply for import licenses.
I looked into alcohol production before, including reviewing the relevant laws (and associated regulations and implementation notes for alcohol production facilities). Try to talk to some craft brewers to get a better understanding. Many actually outsource production to contract breweries.
I went to a Tainan mirco brew place, go visit and talk with them. They only sell there and brew in house from understanding (self learned, some from YouTube videos)
Thanks, not sure when I’ll get the chance to go to Tainan but I’ll definitely look them up. Also going to talk to indigenous producers of alcohol in my area. I believe different laws apply to them in certain situations, but we might be able to work out some kind of deal. Maybe.
As far as I know there is no legal way of doing this, unless your restaurant is properly licensed for alcohol production. There are a ton of prerequisites for that, including for instance being on industrially zoned land.
Of course this is Taiwan, so enforcement may vary.
Talk to Spencer or Doug at Redpoint. They wrote the book on this and now have their own brewery operation doing contract brewing for other micro brands as well as their Redpoint range.
I don’t know these guys and don’t actually know how fully accurate the information in this article is, but it’s interesting at least, you might find it worth reading.
