Florida

Leslie, I’ll try to tackle your questions. Keep them coming!

This site is really dedicated to cottage foods, or value-added homemade foods. If you want to sell uncut fruits and vegetables, then you should be able to do that without any kind of permit. Eggs and milk are a little different… the eggs will probably be okay, though some states have regulations for those. Some states do allow raw milk sales, but I’m not sure if Florida is one of them. Sorry, I haven’t done the research on those!

So what you see on the tables are cottage foods, as that’s the focus of this site and that is what these limitations are referring to. It means that you are preparing certain items in your home kitchen, as you probably know. Cottage food laws are really intended to help get someone more easily started in a business — kind of on a trial basis. If you go over the $15,000 then you do need to become a commercial food processor at that point. It’s difficult enough that these laws were created to avoid it, but then again, for many years that was the only way to start a food business, with no proof of concept and with no advanced money from the business. It takes time and depending on the equipment you need, could require a significant investment of capital. If you have access to a commercial kitchen for free, and it meets your needs, then that would drastically reduce the barriers for you to go that route.

Technically, you would not be liable to get sued if a customer got sick, as long as you were following the rules as a legal operation. The special statement on your labels acts as a notice to the consumer that they are taking a risk by buying your product. However, this may not prevent someone from trying to sue you, and they may even be successful. I have never heard of this happening, but it’s possible enough that many cottage food operations get some form of insurance for their business, which usually costs $200 – $400 per year.