David Crabill
@david
active 1 day, 18 hours agoForum Replies Created
- Posts
Thanks Roberto! Jessie accidentally responded to your message via email (which came to me). Here’s her response:
Hi Roberto, thank you so much for your response to my post. Italy is a place I’ve always dreamed about visiting. I should’ve been born there because I love all the cuisine, culture, landscape, etc.
I so appreciate your feedback on my hard candy dilemma. I have tried so many times to replicate it and have yet to succeed. I have even tried making it was just powdered sugar to see if that made a difference, but it didn’t. I will try your suggestion of the “brute force” next time I give this a shot. After many attempts to replicate it, I had come to the conclusion that it must be just a product of a mistake or oversight on my part.
I want to thank you for spending so much time responding to me. All the information you shared is very helpful and validated some of what I was thinking. I love to cook and bake and I’m always willing to try some thing new. Making hard candy is a new love I discovered after trying to replicate the caramel “Nips” hard Candy that I have loved since I was a teenager. I’m a pretty persistent person, so I will continue my trial and error experimentation to replicate my mystery candy :-) But this time, I’m going to pay attention to each step I take and note any changes I see happening during the cooking process. Take care Roberto!
I think it’s going to depend on what county you live in. I know that some counties would definitely allow potato chips. But since it’s not explicitly written into the law, maybe not all will. You’d need to reach out to your health dept to check.
For the fruit blossoms, I don’t know but I doubt it. For the second, it probably depends on your county. Some counties will be very strict and will say no to anything that’s not on the official state list of allowed foods. Either way, I recommend that you contact your local environmental health dept for clarification on whether you can make these items.
They mean 70 proof alcohol that’s flavored with those (and only those) items. Here are the categories:
Apple * Apricot * Blackberry * Blueberry * Cherry * Chocolate * Clove *
Cinnamon * Cranberry * Grapefruit * Lemon * Lime * Orange * Peach * Pear
* Pineapple * Pomegranate * Raspberry * Strawberry * and VanillaYou wouldn’t be able to use the flowers, I don’t think. Ultimately, your product name would be “vanilla extract” or “peach extract” or perhaps a combination of some of the categories.
I honestly don’t have enough experience with candy making to answer you question. Have you tried going to a local candy shop and asking? I bet they’d be happy to help!
Food trucks are kind of in a class of their own. In the case of a retail store, the shop owner has the proper licenses and insurance and they are allowed to sell your products themselves. Likewise, a permitted food truck owner would be able to sell your products from their truck. You also could hop on their truck and sell them yourself. But for you to sell from your own food truck, I believe you’d need to get the proper permits. I’d recommend talking to the health dept for more guidance.
I would only recommend crowdfunding or fundraising once you have a sizable customer base and a successful business. Typically, raising money is used to take a business to the next level (commercial kitchen, food truck, brick and mortar, etc). But when starting out, a few hundred dollars (or less) is all you need. Try going back and watching my mini course to see how to allow the business to pay for its startup costs.
- This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by
David Crabill.
Hi Johnathan, it’s typical to feel overwhelmed when starting out. I don’t think you need a business partner at this stage.
Try not to get stuck on branding or being worried about something going wrong. Yes, starting a business comes with its challenges, but it’s hard to predict them. Usually the most successful entrepreneurs are those who put themselves out there and know that if a problem comes up, they will figure out how to fix it at that point.
It depends on your county/city. If they require business licenses, usually they require them for any type of food business. The only way to know for sure is to contact the dept that administers business licenses.
As far as I know, fermented foods are not allowed under VA’s basic cottage food law. However, you can sell up to $3k of acidified foods, including pickles (non-traditional) and hot sauce.
You MIGHT be able to use VA’s home food processing law to sell more than that, but I’m not sure how many ag dept allow home food processing operations.
And you can always use a commercial kitchen with the appropriate license (and likely required training) to produce these products without restriction.
- This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by
