Melissa Fisher

Yes, usually handwritten labels are allowed as long as they’re legible.

Because of the licensing requirements that some venues have, they wouldn’t be able to serve your homemade cake and there wouldn’t be a way to get around it, aside from using a different venue. Sometimes venues will allow a homemade cake, but they’re doing so illegally. The language in the law literally states that food establishments cannot serve…[Read more]

Jess, I understand your concerns and I know it’s frustrating. You can imagine how all of the small local bakeries felt when the cottage food law got passed… what was the point of them going thru all the setup effort a year or two ago?

In addition to the CFOs that are bending the cottage food law, there are many many more that are ignoring the…[Read more]

Well in that case, my latter comments stand. She should be able to help you because she’s family, and you should be able to be her employee. If I’m mistaken about this, I’d like to know. But sometimes health depts are mistaken too.

You can sell certain types of goods that don’t require refrigeration using this law: http://forrager.com/law/south-carolina/

You can sell lemon pies, but not lemon meringue pies, since those require refrigeration.

The farmers market may also have requirements beyond the cottage food law. You may also be interested in reading this:…[Read more]

Krystle, am I understanding correctly that you want to make your CFO products at your mom’s shop? That wouldn’t be allowed. You can only make products for your CFO from your own home. In fact, the entire production process, including packaging and labeling, should be contained to your home and shouldn’t happen in your mom’s shop. Then you would…[Read more]

No matter how small your business, you still need to go through all of the proper licensing procedures. If you can operate under the cottage food law, you wouldn’t need a permit from the ag dept, but you may need other permits. http://forrager.com/faq/#starting

Chocolate should be allowed under Ohio’s cottage food law. The only thing that could…[Read more]

I’m not sure if MD’s cottage food law allows spices, but I do know that you can’t sell online, nor could you sell interstate. To do those things, you need to use a commercial kitchen: http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial

The health dept is correct. You are a CFO, and your mom would have to be a food processing establishment. Since a CFO can’t be a food processing establishment (by definition in the law), you can’t both be in the same business. It is possible to do what you want to, but you need to create two separate businesses — one for you and one for your mom.…[Read more]

The law only allows baked goods, jams, jellies, and dried herbs, so by definition, everything outside of those categories is not allowed. A fully-baked chocolate cake would be allowed. It’s not a matter of whether or not a chocolate bar is safe… it’s just that the law was written in a very conservative way. They probably wrote it in that way…[Read more]