Blythe Pelham

This would be beyond the scope of cottage food laws, and I simply don’t know. You should contact your health dept.

Nay. You’ll need a commercial kitchen for that. http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial

Did the ag dept tell you that? If not, I’d recommend you call them to confirm. If that’s true, you might need to hire a lab to test your alcohol content.

Oklahoma only allows baked goods under their cottage food law. Therefore, you’d need to use a commercial kitchen to run your business. http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial

Cottage food operations would not be able to use a shared kitchen. You might consider asking on a different forum… maybe Cake Central?

I understand that $20K doesn’t sound like much (I had a similar feeling when starting my CFO), but actually, most CFOs are doing very well to do $20K of sales in the first, second, or even third year. When thinking about a business, it’s easy to think about all the potential it has, and the last thing you’d want is for the law to limit you when…[Read more]

I don’t think that’s allowed, but you could call the health dept to see if the exemption for donated baked goods extends to online sales.

There aren’t typically a ton of requirements to start a fruit stand, but San Francisco is a complicated place. I don’t know all of the requirements, but you will have to ask about zoning rules, as well as speak with the ag dept and probably a few other depts. I wouldn’t be surprised it it’s fairly complex to start one there.

It depends on the frosting. Basic frostings without dairy products should be allowed at farmers markets. To sell at specialty stores, I believe you need to produce the frostings in a commercial kitchen. For anything other than basic frosting, you need to call the ag dept at 800-282-1955 ext 4366 for more info about what’s allowed.…[Read more]

I think you’ll be fine, as long as your kitchen doesn’t open up to a bedroom or sleeping space. Assuming you’re going with a Class B permit, just move ahead with the inspection and I highly doubt they’ll say anything about it.

There probably isn’t a written rule about that. I’d say a contractor would be fine. The important point is that it’s only one person.

You need to pay annual taxes on all income you make, even if your business is operating at a loss. There is no limit — technically, your first order should have been reported. If you want to bypass income tax requirements, you would need to give away your products (not collect money). Once you start making a certain amount of money, you need to…[Read more]

It should be okay, but you still need to check with your county’s environmental health dept. If they choose to disallow it, there’s not much you can do about it.

Products must be hand-delivered, but since you can have one employee, you can hire someone to deliver for you. You can’t use a delivery service, like UPS.

I’m pretty sure kombucha isn’t allowed, but you should check with your environmental health dept to make sure. http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial