Blake Moyer

You need to use a commercial kitchen and your business won’t have many limitations: http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial

Business licenses are usually very county or city-dependent. I’d never heard about a minimal activity license, but after a little searching, it looks like it’s available in some counties for businesses with gross sales of under $10,000. In TN, as a cottage food operation, there is no sales limit, so it depends on what your yearly revenues are. It…[Read more]

I really don’t know. I’d recommend you contact the TN Department of Revenue.

Yes, you can do it with a commercial license. http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial

There is no legal way to sell homemade cheesecakes in TN. Your mom needs a commercial license, which would also allow her to take online orders and do interstate sales. http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial

Yes you can

Yeah this site is for cottage food laws, which are separate than those for mobile food trucks. I think you’re going to need to call your local health dept about this since you probably won’t be able to find the info online.

Jean, you cannot be the owner of both a commercial food business and a cottage food operation. It sounds like even though the items you are selling would fall under the cottage food law, you will need to get a commercial permit to sell those items, which should be much easier for you since you already have a commercial kitchen setup.

The actual law language says labels must include “…the date on which the food product was packaged, the net quantity of the food product…”

I’m not sure if the law is referring to net weight, or if you could simply put the number of cookies on the label (because of “net quantity”). But you can’t go wrong if you just put the net weight. As far…[Read more]

Yes, you should be able to make those under Tennessee’s cottage food law.

Yes, you are absolutely reading that right in terms of your state’s requirements. You should check with your city or county though (probably the planning division)… they may have some requirements. For instance, you might have to get a standard business license, which is usually easy and inexpensive.