David Crabill

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

Pam, there was a time a few years back when I wasn’t very active on here. But these days, I’ll make sure that any post receives a reply. I don’t see any forum posts from you where you’ve asked a cottage food question. You did reply to someone about a year ago, and I did respond to that back then. If you have any questions, please let me know!

I will start by saying that I don’t fully know. But based on this page, which states that you can sell non-PHF candy “in individual-sized portions for immediate consumption only”, my guess is that the exemption is only for sales at an event, where the individually-wrapped candy is intended to be consumed immediately after a sale. Naturally that…[Read more]

The only way to legally sell meat empanadas is to use a commercial kitchen and get licensed with the health dept. Most likely you would rent someone else’s at an hourly rate. Here’s some more info about finding a commercial kitchen: https://forrager.com/faq/#commercial-kitchen

Although she can’t sell meat empanadas from home, she should be able to sell homemade fruit empanadas.

I’m not aware of a restriction against buttercream in Michigan. I just re-checked the ag dept’s official page and don’t see anything there prohibiting it. It’s correct that you can’t use cream cheese in frosting. If you could point me to where you’re seeing that buttercream is disallowed, that would be helpful. If it were in-fact not allowed, then…[Read more]

Yes, fudge is definitely a shelf stable food! I sell it with my business and it never needs refrigeration. You don’t need to take the food handlers course to sell it in OK.

I don’t think the method of canning matters so much. The main thing is making sure that the pH is at 4.6 or below. There are 3 methods for ensuring the pH, and you must use one of them. There are some other requirements for acidified foods, like including the batch number and date on the label. I’d recommend reading through all of the info on the…[Read more]

There is still the $1k limit if your county allows home kitchen operations and you’re selling outside of a farmers market. But as you mentioned, the law is changing and this limit is going away in 2022. If it were me, I’d probably fly under the radar for the next couple of months instead of going through the time and expense of setting up a…[Read more]

Yes, hot sauces would be considered an acidified food, and as long as yours stays below a 4.6 pH, then you should be able to sell it with VA’s basic exemption. No inspection needed, but you may need a general business license. You can ask around at the farmers market to see if vendors needed anything else to sell from home, or the farmers market…[Read more]