David Crabill
@david
active 7 hours, 44 minutes agoForum Replies Created
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Lindsay, the law isn’t really clear about that, and that’s why I hadn’t specified it on the site. My guess is that the intent of the law is not to allow online sales.
I just re-researched both the home-based exemption and the domestic kitchen law, so those now have quite a bit more information. I’m now confident that you can sell online if you’re licensed as a domestic kitchen, but if you find out more about online selling via the newer law, I’d be glad to know.
Usually you have to talk to the health dept about getting licensed. There is a lot of paperwork and plans you need to fill out to start a commercial food business, and there may be some training required as well. The letter of the law typically states that food cannot be stored at home, but I know that health depts are lenient about that sometimes.
You cannot sell homemade soup in stores. You need to produce the soup in a commercial kitchen. http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial
To add to what Chad wrote:
1. Many allow you to email it, though some require snail mail or hand delivery. Only a few have an online form submission.
3. It does not count as getting zoning approval… that approval will likely be a prerequisite to completing your health dept application.
4. It greatly varies by county. This might help.
5. My understanding was that you only need permission to sell elsewhere if you are selling indirectly. You should be able to directly sell in-person anywhere in the state.
6. This varies by county. Some require initial submission of all label variations, and some charge another fee whenever you want to add a product.As long as it doesn’t contain meat, I believe you could set yourself up as a home food processing operation: http://forrager.com/law/virginia-home-food-processing-operation/
Sorry Amanda, I don’t know. Have you tried registering via the link above?
First of all, although I’m familiar with the law, I’m not really in a position where I could override anything that an official in your area says. Here are my thoughts:
1) Your farmers market manager is telling you that you can’t use the cottage food law. You need to make you food in a commercial kitchen and get a few other things. There’s no getting around what a farmers market requires, and many of them don’t allow homemade food. You should make sure they’re aware of the cottage food law, so you can be sure that they’re specifically disallowing sellers under it.
2) My guess is that you need the sales tax receipt from your city and county, even if you don’t sell there. If you didn’t then you would need to get one in every city and county that you sell in. Either way, I think you have to take those fees into consideration.Also, I think you might need to take a Food Manager course, which is well beyond the training you took for your CFO. You will need to get another business license because I’m pretty sure you can’t use the same one that your CFO uses. The kitchen you rent will probably require you to get insurance.
I don’t know too much about going the commercial route, but I know that it can be complex. You are probably going to get very familiar with the health dept in the process. I believe that you need to create a number of detailed plans, about what you make and exactly how you make it. What is your waste disposal plan, where do you source ingredients, what is your plan for storing them? I’m pretty sure all of these things need to be written out. If you rent out an hourly kitchen, the kitchen owner would probably be an excellent resource.
Only certain types of condiments are allowed, and BBQ sauce isn’t one of them. It has to do with the potential risks associated with producing BBQ sauce. I do encourage you to confirm that with the health dept though, just to be sure.
