David

I’m not familiar enough with the standard of definition for jams and jellies to verify whether your product would be allowed, but if you’d like to dig through the legalese to determine whether your product would be allowed, here it is: https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?CFRPart=150

Hi!
(fellow masshole) Just curious whether you got the authorization from your town or from the state?
Thanks,
Mike

You won’t be able to use the cottage food law, since you are not baking the dough at home. Instead, it sounds like you will have to produce the dough in a commercial kitchen.

I do not know for sure if peanut butter would be allowed, but I assume that it would.

The process for getting setup can be pretty complicated, and is largely dependent on your town or county. The fastest way to get info about how to start this kind of business is to talk to the health inspector in your area. When I tried to setup a business in…[Read more]

My guess is that you won’t be able to do what you envision. If all you are doing is making pizza dough, baking it, and then selling baked pizza crusts (with nothing on them) for customers to pickup, then yes, I’d say this is possible. You can sell bread as a cottage food operation in MA. I’m not sure if you could use an outdoor oven to do that,…[Read more]

As long as you get a residential kitchen license, you should be able to sell to stores, though I’m not sure if there’s extra licensing required, like a wholesale license.

In general, yes, you need to follow the same rules. But in this case, I haven’t confirmed that dry mixes are allowed under the cottage food law in Massachusetts, so it might be harder to start that type of business. You can contact the ag dept to determine what they will allow.

Over the past few years, I’ve seen many entrepreneurs try to establish an online marketplace for local foods — virtually all of them with limited or no success, myself included. So just by that fact alone, it’s clear that there are some serious barriers to entry in this space. I’m still trying to figure out exactly what those barriers are.

I…[Read more]

It would probably be allowed under the cottage food law, but really, if your health inspector is okay with it with fewer requirements, then I’d say you’re good to go. They are the ones that regulate the laws, and their word about what’s allowed is final.

I don’t think there’s any exemption — perhaps the ag dept will allow you to hand out labels separately from the item, or possibly hand out the ingredient list separately.

If you look at some products in stores (like candy bars), you can see that a lot of info can be fit onto a small package. It’s also possible to use some creativity to attach…[Read more]

No, you need a commercial kitchen for that. http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial

You probably need a business license (you don’t need to be incorporated)… not sure if you need a tax number. Here’s some info on insurance: http://forrager.com/faq/#insurance

It all depends on where you live. I’d recommend that as a first step, you call your county’s planning division.