Melissa Fisher

“Hygiene control” means a home kitchen inspection.

That sentence actually refers to licensing requirements from a health or ag dept, which you don’t need. You always need to abide by any local or general business requirements, which could be explained better on the site. Here’s some info about that: http://forrager.com/faq/#starting

Rebecca, in that case I assume that relish and sauerkraut are also never allowed? Are there any other non-refrigerated, non-meat items that are always prohibited?

You should call Heath at the ag dept at 804-786-1164, and he should be able to clear up most of your questions. You can probably make buttercream frosting, but I’m not sure about that, since sometimes depts disallow it. I don’t think you need any licensing from the ag dept, but you still need to call your local authorities to determine if you need…[Read more]

I have heard that CO requires all of it’s CFOs to be sole proprietorships, and if so, it is the only state to do so.

If that’s not true, then you probably already have a lot of what you need to get started. You’ll need to check again with your local depts to see if any food-specific permits are required, as well as make sure your business is…[Read more]

No — drinks are not allowed under the cottage food laws. http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial

Typically the answer would be no, but someone did say that their ag dept allowed them to do it: http://forrager.com/law/south-carolina/#comment-51505

If the retail location is a food establishment, then I’m almost certain that you can’t sell there, even though you own it.

As far as I know, having a pet anywhere in your home prohibits you from being able to sell homemade food. Your dog can never enter the house. I believe the ruling is that pets cannot be “in the building” of any business that manufactures food for sale.

You should be using your home’s kitchen… if you wanted to build or use a separate kitchen on…[Read more]

Sorry! I just saw your earlier post in the Illinois forum so I’m deleting this one.

It sounds like your pretzels would fall under the “baked good” category in the law (please note that this site only gives a summary of the law; see the resources section for the law itself). You should be able to sell them as a cottage food operation. Sorry if it was confusing, but “Pretzels” is listed as a category in the “Snacks” section:…[Read more]

I’m not sure if you need some sort of certification for gluten free labeling, though I do know that there are certain quantities that you need to stay under. By making this health claim, you need to place a nutrition facts panel on your label, which is an extra expense and process.

Labeling a product as organic can be very complicated and…[Read more]

As long as they’re baked (not fried), you should be able to do this as a cottage food operation: http://forrager.com/law/illinois/

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

Thanks for the response and that’s good to know, though it is possible to make salsa in a way that is non-potentially hazardous. It sounds like the dept is generally staying away from salsas at this time, which are known (along with other canned vegetables) to be one of the most risky cottage foods.

I think that fruit-only, thoroughly-baked pierogis would be allowed, and all other types of pierogis would not be. You can call the dept at 800-292-3939 to see exactly what they will or will not allow.

I really don’t know, as this is a sourcing issue that health depts in CA seem to be very particular about, especially since you’re sending an ag-based product across state lines into CA. If you followed the appropriate regulations to legally get your raw wheat it into CA (may not be possible), then your sons would have to check with the…[Read more]