David Crabill
@david
active 1 day, 21 hours agoForum Replies Created
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Yes, cupcakes are allowed.
When you bake a cake, the egg gets cooked into the batter and that’s allowed. Basically, if your product needs refrigeration, as would be the case with a custard, cheesecake, or cream pie, then it isn’t allowed. Standalone milk and dairy products, like yogurt, cheese, etc. are not allowed, but you can incorporate certain kinds of dairy (limited amounts of milk, eggs, etc.) into your baked goods. Incorporating any amount of cheese would not be allowed.
It does appear that candy is not allowed in WA, unless it’s a baked candy, but hardly any candies fall into that category. So fudge, chocolate, truffles, etc. are not allowed. However, chocolate frosting is allowed, and I believe that chocolate buttercream frosting would also be allowed, but you’ll need to confirm with your health dept on that one. Also, when you mix a small amount of milk with powdered sugar, it does not require refrigeration and is therefore allowed.
Hope that helps.
Collette, I’m not exactly sure what your question is. Are you wondering if your home kitchen can be a commercial kitchen, or if you can legally operate under the cottage food law with your home kitchen?
I can tell you that you can’t become commercially licensed from your home kitchen, and you will have to accept the restrictions of the cottage food law if you continue to use that to produce your products.
As far as I know, there are no strict pet rules for the cottage food law in Ohio. As long as you are keeping your pets out of the kitchen while you’re preparing products, you should be fine to follow the cottage food law and legally sell your goods.
No you do not… you can sign any petition you support!
The law says “A cottage food production operation shall not process acidified foods, low acid canned foods, or potentially hazardous foods.” Beyond that, the state doesn’t really have much published online about this.
The technical rules that Ohio probably follows are described in Part 150 of Title 21 of the Code of Federal Regulations.
However, if you’re like most people that probably won’t make much sense to you! It’s much too complicated for myself but from what I’ve heard, basically, your jams or jellies need some acidic or sugar component to help keep the product shelf stable. Most jam and jelly recipes have sugar and/or citrus added to accomplish this.
Products that are more likely to be considered potentially hazardous are low-sugar jams and jellies, such as those made from little more than the fruit.
If you are unsure about your product, you can get it tested in a lab to determine if it’s non-potentially hazardous or not. But as I said, most common jam/jelly recipes are fine.
That would not be legal as far as the cottage food laws are concerned. You must use only your own kitchen to prepare cottage foods.
However, I know that personal chef websites are becoming more popular. There may be some way for the family to hire you as their chef, and then you use their kitchen to make them food. So instead of selling them the food you cook, you’re really selling your services. But I’m really ignorant of this area of the industry, and you will probably want to call the health dept to learn more.
Yes, this is correct for direct sales only. However, some counties are taking awhile implementing this change. For your indirect sales, the rules haven’t changed.
Yes you can. Here’s what the ag dept says about it:
As long as your product meets the requirements of the Cottage Food guidance document and is a non-potentially hazardous food, sampling is allowed. Samples must be pre-packaged in your home kitchen (e.g, if you sample bread, you can’t cut it at the market, but can cut it in your home kitchen and individually wrap or package the bread samples into sample cups with lids). Although you do not need an individual label for each sample , you must have properly labeled packages of your product on display with the samples so your customer can review the ingredient list. Your product cannot be cooked or prepared in a way that makes it a potentially hazardous food/temperature control for safety food (e.g., you can’t add a dried dip mix to sour cream or serve anything that can’t be kept safely at room temperature – these examples would require a food license).
I don’t know of any efforts already underway, but usually amendments have to start at the grassroots level. If you are interested in getting more involved, I can put you in touch with an organization that can help you start a campaign. Almost all cottage food laws have started by someone like yourself taking initiative.
It’s not a gray area… drinks simply aren’t allowed.
An update: according to this article, there are at least 1,200 CFOs in California. I don’t know where the writer got their info, but it appears that they called a number of health departments and requested counts, and then added up the numbers from those that responded.
