David Crabill
@david
active 7 hours, 53 minutes agoForum Replies Created
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Vanessa, what state do you live in?
You can’t do this from home — you would have to get a commercial license: http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial
If you get a standard commercial license, which requires the use of a commercial kitchen (only), then you can do just about anything possible… it’s just more complicated and more expensive, and less convenient if you’d rather cook in your home. But you could sell anywhere, including interstate and over the internet, and you would be given a license.
Even though the liquid version is shelf-stable, that doesn’t mean they would approve it.
If it has a smooth consistency, then it would probably be a nut butter, even though it’s dried. Nut butters that aren’t dried are okay, so I can’t see why this wouldn’t be allowed.
Sorry, it’s not possible. You must use a commercial kitchen. http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial
Yes, that’s correct. Generally, starting a cottage food operation is the cheapest way possible for you to start a food business legally. In terms of the last question, you might want to check out the book “Cooking Up A Business”, by Rachel Hofstetter: http://bestmomproducts.com/top-3-foodie-entrepreneur-tips/
http://forrager.com/faq/#startingMany states would allow this, but in Florida, you can only handle and package your items in your home kitchen.
Basically, your final product needs to be non-potentially hazardous. When you add milk to cake batter and then bake it, it is no longer considered potentially hazardous. When you mix milk into frosting, the sugar stabilizes it and the final frosting product is non-perishable. Ice cream is a potentially hazardous food and cannot go in a cottage food product.
Unfortunately you can’t own both a commercial food business and a cottage food operation. Ironically, you could buy the cookies from a class B CFO and buy a commercial-grade ice cream, but you’d still need a commercial kitchen to make them into sandwiches and package them. You could still try talking to your health dept and see if you can own both kinds of businesses, but I don’t think it’s possible.
This is an interesting product… haven’t seen something like it before. On your site you say that your creamers come in “liquid or powder”. It does sound like the liquid version would probably not be allowed.
However, you should be okay with the dry version. As long as the consumer is adding the water, there shouldn’t be any issues. I’d imagine that consumers would also add milk instead, but that doesn’t matter either.
How dry is the product? It looks like you’re purifying cashews, which obviously have oils. Are you then drying out the final product? Is it dry enough that you can touch it with your finger and it won’t stick?
If so, then the health dept really can’t disapprove it, even with the name. There is a person at the CDPH that handles this stuff. I can’t remember her name right now, but if you call them, you should eventually get transferred to her. She has talked with other counties about allowing certain kinds of foods.
I haven’t seen any rules published by the Ohio ag dept, but generally, you should be individually packaging your samples in your home kitchen, and they should be opened by the consumer. That’s the way a number of other states do it, and you can’t go wrong with that. If you contact the ag dept, maybe their standards would be a bit more lenient (such as allowing you to cut samples on-site).
