David Crabill
@david
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Some counties in some states (not sure about PA) offer temporary event permits that allow someone to sell certain types of homemade food for a short period of time. If your county (ag or health dept) doesn’t offer that, then you would need to setup yourself as a Limited Food Establishment: http://forrager.com/law/pennsylvania/
Unfortunately, I haven’t yet heard about the specific requirements in PA. Here is some general info about sales tax: http://forrager.com/faq/#sales-tax
You will need to pay yearly income taxes, as you would with any business. I believe most exemptions revolve around sales tax, and your ag dept might be able to guide you to the correct dept for tax info.
Well, certainly the easiest solution would be to place something around the kitchen that would block the cat from accessing it.
I’m not sure if it would be possible to do what you’re describing with a cottage food license. You could call the health dept to see if they allow a non-primary kitchen to be used with the law.
It should be possible to setup a commercial kitchen on your property, and then get a commercial license, but that process would be much more complicated and expensive.
Okay that makes sense. That’s such an expensive process and it’s a lot of work! I know a number of people have setup a commercial kitchen at home, but it’s uncommon.
Taxes are so inconsistent between counties (or in your case, parishes), that I don’t include much info about them on the site. Often there are exemptions for bakeries, but I vaguely recall that LA isn’t one of the ones where you get a break on sales tax, as all parishes have their own rates. Anyway, you would certainly know more about me, but my feeling is that no, switching to a CFO wouldn’t change anything tax-related, either with sales taxes or with income taxes. Are there any other taxes you pay?
I’m curious to hear your opinion based on your experience. It’s not too often that I hear from someone who has done the whole commercial kitchen setup in their home, much less from someone who’s had one for multiple years. However, people often ask me if they should make the leap to build a commercial kitchen at home so they can start/continue their home business without the restrictions. What has your experience been like? After four years, are you glad you went to all that effort and expense?
Both shipping and online transactions are prohibited for a cottage food business. You would need a standard commercial license to ship. http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial
Is your kitchen fully-licensed as a commercial kitchen? If you’re just using a basic residential kitchen, then I wasn’t even aware that you could run a home bakery like this without using the cottage food law.
Anyway, usually people start as a cottage food operation and then transition into a commercial bakery, but if your orders are down, then switching to a CFO might make sense. One big reason people choose a CFO over a commercial business is because of the complicated setup, but you’ve already done that.
I think the main reason you might choose to convert to a CFO would mainly be because most things are less complicated. You wouldn’t have to get your kitchen inspected or even need a permit from the health dept (though I have heard that health depts in LA are asking to see product labels before you start). Labeling requirements are significantly minimized and permits/fees would be reduced. However, with the ease comes restrictions like a $20,000 sales cap and the requirement to make only cakes that don’t require refrigeration. That last point might be a deal breaker for you.
Again, I’d be interested to know how and when you initially setup your business.
Some counties require every single label with ingredient lists for each and every final product and variation you could possibly make, but I think Sacramento is a little more relaxed about that. However, they may have changed their policy about that, especially considering the fact that their application now asks for “specific foods”. This is one of the limitations of running your business from home — it’s not like a traditional bakery. In case you’re not already aware, you can’t run a bakery from home like you would in a commercial location. You can’t put out signage and people can’t eat your product at your home (tasting should be fine). You probably know that, but just making sure.
Honestly, I don’t know what Sacramento’s requirements are right now. I’d recommend calling them, as sometimes email has a long turnaround time. Be aware that you might need to figure out, in advance, everything you will be making with specific ingredients listed. It’s typically the longest step in the whole setup process.
I agree that it doesn’t make sense from a practical standpoint, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call it discrimination. Although your kitchen has been inspected, a commercial kitchen has to adhere to hundreds of other requirements that your kitchen does not. I don’t think the shipping restriction stems from a food safety concern… rather, it’s a concern about the purpose of the cottage food law and the type and size of businesses that should be running with it.
The only way to change the law would be to create a bill that would amend the law and pass it through the legislature in the next session (starting in a couple months). People like yourself can and do take the initiative to get these off the ground, and that’s the way most cottage food laws and amendments have been started. It takes a lot of time and effort, as well as finding a representative who will work with you. An amendment like this could allow shipping for all CFOs in CA.
However, shipping restrictions are not actually built into the law. That recommendation came from the CDPH after the law was enacted, and local health depts have chosen to adopt their recommendation. It is actually possible for a county’s health dept to choose to allow shipping, since that’s not anywhere in the law.
It’s not possible to do what you’ve described by using your home kitchen. You can either do this with your home kitchen and sell in-state (you can sell online, but shipping is not allowed) by following the cottage food law described on this site. If you want to sell nationwide, you need to use a commercial kitchen and adhere to a different set of laws. http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial
I’m not sure if there’s a definitive answer for this question yet. From what I’ve heard over time, it’s likely that although you can’t ship to the wholesaler (or any other customer), the wholesaler can sell your product by almost any means, including shipping it. It still doesn’t make sense to me why Class B CFOs cannot ship their products within the state. You will need to talk to your health dept for final clarification about what’s allowed in your county/city.
