Barbara Gainwell

The ag or health dept doesn’t issue CFO certificates. The only definite requirement that I’m aware of is the sales tax certificate: http://forrager.com/law/louisiana/

There may also be some other local requirements before you can start: http://forrager.com/faq/#starting

I should add that you’ll definitely need to file income taxes at the end of the year.

I don’t know, but it’s quite possible that you need to collect some kind of sales tax. You need to check with your parish and see if there are exemptions from collecting tax on some types of food sales. State sales tax is often exempted for food that is consumed off the premises, but the details of those exemptions can get complicated. Have you…[Read more]

Hummus wouldn’t be allowed since it requires refrigeration. http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial

No, but you can probably sell dried pasta under the law. For fresh pasta, you need to get a commercial license: http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial

Okay that makes sense. That’s such an expensive process and it’s a lot of work! I know a number of people have setup a commercial kitchen at home, but it’s uncommon.

Taxes are so inconsistent between counties (or in your case, parishes), that I don’t include much info about them on the site. Often there are exemptions for bakeries, but I vaguely…[Read more]

Thanks for the reply. We set up our business (www.sweetcompositions.net) about four years ago. First we built a commercial kitchen, to code specs, onto our home as an addition. We then had it inspected and registered with all of the permit offices, health department, sheriff’s office, etc. It was a pretty involved process. Cottage law was not…[Read more]

Is your kitchen fully-licensed as a commercial kitchen? If you’re just using a basic residential kitchen, then I wasn’t even aware that you could run a home bakery like this without using the cottage food law.

Anyway, usually people start as a cottage food operation and then transition into a commercial bakery, but if your orders are down, then…[Read more]