Michelle Freese

Angela, I’m sure your mom’s pimento cheese mix is amazing. However, I’m going to be straight up with you… if you or a family member is not willing to market the product, then it’s probably not going to get off the ground. Making amazing products is fairly easy; selling them is very hard — it took me years to learn this. Even Coca Cola still…[Read more]

From what I have heard, it would be legal for a commercial food business to ship a product after they have purchased it from you.

There are some counties that will not approve anything that isn’t explicitly on the approved list, and it sounds like you’re in one of those counties. In that case, you either need to adapt your products or go the commercial route.

MUCH MORE IMPORTANTLY, I would never recommend spending hundreds of dollars to get unvetted recipes approved. I can…[Read more]

I’m not entirely sure why they haven’t yet approved chocolate-covered strawberries, but it may have something to do with their shelf life. It also may be because chocolate-covered fresh fruit typically falls under catering. You can sell whole, uncut strawberries without a license. http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial

John, could you provide some references to back up your claim? It’s not about the requirements being “more” or “less” — it’s just that the requirements are different because they’re managed by a different dept. I wouldn’t be surprised if some states allow homemade pet food, but I haven’t yet confirmed that any do. Many states require animal feed…[Read more]

Regarding the sales limit question from the original post, it’s not specifically “enforced”… it’s more of an honor roll thing. But it’s good to think of the cottage food law as an umbrella. If you stay within the rules and the law, you are under the umbrella and protected to a certain degree. If you don’t follow the rules and someone sues you,…[Read more]

I think Sandie is referring to the health dept.

This is county-dependent, though. I would not expect most counties to allow two CFOs to operate from the same kitchen.