Researching Your State’s Cottage Food Law
If you want to learn more about your state’s cottage food law, or better understand how this site was made, this post will give you ideas for how to research and update a law on Forrager.
California’s New Homemade Food Law Comes With A Nasty Surprise
California’s new law (AB 626) has some lofty goals, but some of the bill language will keep it from making much of an impact. Cottage food bills have made some mistakes over and over again, preventing them from achieving their full potential.
Launch your home bakery business in Wisconsin, legally!
Is the aroma of sweet victory coming from the ovens of Wisconsin wafting your way? Here in our state we can finally – legally – sell homemade, non-hazardous baked goods. Or more specifically, it took over five years, three cottage food bills that never passed and a successful lawsuit so that here in Wisconsin we […]
Starting A Cottage Food Business – Limitations
If you want to start a home food business, there are a number of potential limitations that you should be aware of. Learn about the different limitations that states may include in their cottage food laws.
Starting A Cottage Food Operation – Sales Limit
Many states limit the amount of homemade food that you can sell. Learn about why sales limits exist, how they’re enforced, and why they shouldn’t stop your food business from taking off.
Starting A Cottage Food Operation – Allowed Foods
In most states, you can only sell certain types of homemade food. Most cottage food laws only allow nonperishable food items, but some states allow almost all types of food, while other states are very restrictive. Learn about what types of homemade food products you can sell under your cottage food law.
Starting A Cottage Food Operation – Health / Ag Departments
When starting a home food business, you will likely need to deal with the health or ag department. Learn about what you should be aware of when contacting these departments.
Starting A Cottage Food Operation – Zoning
Zoning laws may be the largest barrier to starting your cottage food business. Learn about why zoning laws exist and what you can do to comply with them.
Starting A Cottage Food Operation – First Steps
For most of us, starting a business isn’t easy. Let’s say you want to start your home food business — what do you do? Depending on where you live, there could be any number of barriers between you and your first sale. Learn about a couple of the first steps to take when starting a cottage food operation.
Interview with Lisa Kivirist, Author of Homemade For Sale
Lisa Kivirist co-authored Homemade For Sale, which is an excellent book about the cottage food industry. Hear Lisa speak about her progression from Corporate America to entrepreneurial eco-farmer to author/speaker/activist.
Interview with Rich Gould, Founder of the CFOAA
Rich Gould founded the Cottage Food Operators Association of America (CFOAA) in 2015, and it is the first non-profit trade association for the cottage food industry. I spoke with Rich about a number of topics, including his vision for the CFOAA and the industry.
Why Cottage Food Laws Matter
I had a simple goal: sell my homemade chocolate fudge at the farmers market this summer. How complicated could it be? Turns out that if the government has anything to say about it, the answer is “very complicated”. My experience is just one simple example of why cottage food laws can make a huge difference in a community.
The New Cottage Food Rules
Wyoming has tested the waters of food freedom for a year. Are people using their food freedom law, and if so, is it negatively impacting the public health? Is this the future of the cottage food movement?
Democracy and Selling Homemade Food Products
Democracy is essential to the freedom to earn a livelihood by selling homemade food products.
Status of the Cottage Food Industry
I recently received a few questions from Sid, a student at the University of Tampa who’s doing some research on the cottage food industry. The questions are high-level enough that I realized they’d make a good blog post, so I’m sharing my answers here.
Why Health Departments Hate Cottage Food Laws
Cottage food operations often get frustrated by health departments, who can be slow, uncommunicative, and sometimes downright unfriendly. Do health departments really dislike the cottage food industry as much as people think they do?
Food Freedom Is No Longer A Myth
Yes, food freedom is real. The term has become increasingly popular: you may have heard it around the dinner table, at farmers markets, or even at a food freedom fest. This catchphrase of locavore culture has become so common that, until recently, you may have thought it to be a real thing. Proponents of food […]
Lobbying for or Amending a Cottage Food Law
Live in a state with no cottage food law? Get one passed. If your state law is limited, you’ll need to amend an existing cottage food law. Here’s how.
Virginia Food Freedom Campaign Makes National News
UPDATE: This initiative did not pass again, but hopefully they will try next year. Soon after it failed, Wyoming successfully passed the Wyoming Food Freedom Act, making them the first state to deregulate almost all direct sales of homemade food. Fox News just aired a segment with Bernadette Barber, who has been heading up the Virginia […]
Texas Law Has Created Over A Thousand Local Businesses
Half a year after publishing a detailed report of California’s cottage food law, the Institute for Justice has now published a new report about the amended cottage food law in Texas. It gives a thorough overview of their current law and gives some good examples of people that are using it successfully. One of the more […]
The Attack on Food Freedom
The Institute for Justice has published a report titled “The Attack on Food Freedom“, which feeds off the rising trend of saying no to excessive government regulation in the food industry. The report aims to relate current food laws to the food regulations put in place by Britain in the 18th century, suggesting that the […]
California Cottage Food Law Podcast
Real Food Real Talk interviewed a number of the key players surrounding the cottage food law in California. Their podcast, Home Cooking Your Way To Your Own Food Business, does a good job of summarizing the progress of the cottage food industry in that state.
California’s Cottage Food Laws Create Over A Thousand Local Businesses In First Year
Forbes just published an article detailing California’s cottage food industry in its first year. Most notably, the research found that at least a thousand CFOs have been started already!
11-year-old girl’s cupcake business gets shut down
Another food entrepreneur’s dream (in this case, an 11-year-old girl) gets shut down by the government. Maybe it’s time to get Illinois’ cottage food law amended! Is this girl really hazardous to the public health? As Kathleen mentioned below, coincidentally, a campaign for an improved cottage food law in Illinois just begun. Show your support by […]
Is Virginia’s new cottage food bill too ambitious?
UPDATE: This bill was initially tabled, and has now been abandoned Virginia has a new bill filed for the next legislative session (HB 135), call the “Virginia Food Freedom Act”, which is trying to go where no cottage food law has gone before! Its basic premise is to allow home cooks to make any kind of […]
Cottage food lawsuit filed in Minnesota, but will it work?
A couple bakers in Minnesota, along with the Institute of Justice, have just taken the state’s Department of Agriculture by surprise. As part of IJ’s Food Freedom Initiative, they are filing a lawsuit that is designed to question the very premise of the cottage food law in Minnesota. But in the bigger picture, they are […]
Harvard Students Produce Study About the Cottage Food Industry
A new research paper, titled Cottage Food Laws in the United States, by Alli Condra, has been published by the Food Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard University. The goal of the paper was to create a comprehensive overview of the cottage food industry, including what is allowed in different states, how to create a […]
Can you sell cottage foods?
Can you sell homemade food? The short answer is… probably, if your state allows it. Most states have cottage food laws in place, but there are still some things you should check before getting started.