Missouri

Margie, setting up a commercial kitchen in your home is definitely complicated and not many people do it. However, if you can’t get access to another commercial kitchen, or if working out of your home is a must, then putting a commercial kitchen in your home will be the only way to have an unrestricted food business.

A cottage food operation sounds like it might almost be too limited for you, given that you’ve already given consideration to do all that to your kitchen. As you may know, the cottage food law is different for each county in MO, and one may not even exist in yours. You need to check with the health department.

Without knowing the specifics about your cottage food law, I can tell you that most only let you make food from your home kitchen (making food from any other kitchen would not be allowed). You’d also be limited to non-potentially hazardous foods at the most, you won’t be able to make items that need to be refrigerated. A cottage food operation is a registered business and you can advertise however you want, but all your sales would probably need to be direct (in-person). So while would could sell at a school, you couldn’t sell to a school where they would resell the food. If you’re talking about a school fundraiser, then you should know that most states provide an exemption for religious and charitable events where no license is needed.

Joan, baking for friends and family becomes a business when you start selling your homemade food items to them, or doing monetary transactions for your goods elsewhere. There is no technical definition of a cottage food business, but basically, it’s a for-profit business that sells homemade food products.

If the health dept finds that you are running an illegal business, then they may fine you or may just give you a warning. You’re not supposed to be doing it, but they know that a lot of people do (many of whom do not know that it’s illegal to sell homemade foods), so oftentimes they’re lenient at first.

Carole, my understanding is that a health dept cannot regulate a cottage food operation. It is possible, I suppose, that a city hall could prevent your business, even though the health dept cannot.

If they say no, I’d recommend making sure that they’re aware of the cottage food law — many govt depts are not. Also, it might help to communicate with other cottage food operations, a few of which have listed themselves on Forrager. You can also contact other health depts to learn how they deal with cottage food operations.