David Crabill
@david
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It depends on your state, but usually cottage food laws on only for products intended for human consumption. The health depts is in charge of these kinds of businesses.
Irvine, CA? Neither California nor Texas will allow these products, with the exception of almonds, which both states allow.
The list of allowed foods that matters is here, under questions 2 & 3: http://www.agri.ohio.gov/foodsafety/docs/CottageFoodOperation-factsheet.pdf
Ohio’s law used to be more limited and then they passed an amendment that expanded the list of allowed foods. It appears that only foods that are on the list are allowed. I don’t think there’s a reason why vinegar is not on there, other than that someone didn’t put it on.
Drying your own corn sounds a little more like something they intentionally left off. Even though cornmeal is totally safe in it’s final form, they consider the potential risks required to get it to that stage. Most states do not allow dried vegetables, even though many allow dried fruit.
From the resources I can see online, it doesn’t look like you could produce either of these items. “Mixes” would include cornmeal you buy from the store, but I don’t know if processing it yourself would be okay. However, I could be wrong and I suggest you talk to the ag dept to be sure.
I believe you can’t sell dry or prepared tea without a commercial license. http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial
What state are you in? Usually they cannot, but it depends on your state.
Brownies are a non-potentially hazardous baked good and are allowed.
I don’t know, but you can find out by contacting the Food Compliance Officer at 919-733-7366.
The health dept’s job is to help you with that stuff. I don’t know anyone that helps in setting up a food business. You really need to call them yourself (since you know what your business is going to entail) and if you want to, you can hire a secretary of sorts to handle paperwork.
I don’t know if you have to approve you’re on the lease, but you do need landlord approval. Generally, you may only run a cottage food business from your “primary residence”. Usually that’s where you primarily live, but not always (a college dorm is still a secondary residence, even if the student lives there most of the year). If you have a vacation home, you could not also run your business from there.
Oh wait, sorry. I reread your question and I see that I misread it. I thought you said “prohibiting the sale of baked goods in a residential building”, but I see that it is “prohibiting the sale of goods baked in a residential building”, which changes a lot!
So in this case, they are preventing any CFO from operating, and they are basically disregarding the law that is in place. Yes, they do have the right to do that, and no, there isn’t anything in MA’s law that prevents them from doing that. Your only real option (aside from moving) is to try to create an amendment with a congressman that adds wording to the law that would prevent them from prohibiting you from operating.
