Grub Market

As far as I know, you can only use your residential home kitchen. The kitchen needs to be in your home, and I think that’s the primary requirement. If your external kitchen is on your property, but separate from your home, then I don’t think you can use the cottage food law. If the kitchen is in your basement, it may be possible.

Although a…[Read more]

You probably do need to get a business license, but you need to call your county to confirm. There are a few things you may need to check before starting your business: http://forrager.com/faq/#starting

Have you spoken with the ag or health dept about your business plans? They might be able to point you in the direction of kitchens you could use.

I don’t think so. That would clash with zoning laws, which are meant to prevent people from running businesses in neighborhoods. Selling food at your home only works if people pick it up and consume it off the premises. But just to be clear, I’m not actually knowledgeable about how “you-pick-it” programs work… I am just assuming that they need…[Read more]

First of all, since this is happening in a church, the cottage food laws aren’t applicable.

Honestly, I’m not sure what the rules are for a church. I know that many large churches are regularly inspected by the health dept. I don’t think you can serve hot food without some type of permit, and you should talk to the health dept for more info.

It would only work as a commercial kitchen if it’s consistently inspected by the health dept. However, as a CFO, you are not allowed to use a commercial kitchen (or any kitchen other than your home kitchen) for your business.

I think it depends on the county, but your business license will probably be adequate for selling in most other counties (not sure). However, if you sell wholesale outside of your county, the other counties you sell in need to have an agreement with yours. You need to make sure the health depts have spoken with each other and agreed to allow…[Read more]

Sorry, I don’t know about LA. You just need to call the env health dept and ask them.

There aren’t typically a ton of requirements to start a fruit stand, but San Francisco is a complicated place. I don’t know all of the requirements, but you will have to ask about zoning rules, as well as speak with the ag dept and probably a few other depts. I wouldn’t be surprised it it’s fairly complex to start one there.

I think you’ll be fine, as long as your kitchen doesn’t open up to a bedroom or sleeping space. Assuming you’re going with a Class B permit, just move ahead with the inspection and I highly doubt they’ll say anything about it.

There probably isn’t a written rule about that. I’d say a contractor would be fine. The important point is that it’s only one person.

You need to pay annual taxes on all income you make, even if your business is operating at a loss. There is no limit — technically, your first order should have been reported. If you want to bypass income tax requirements, you would need to give away your products (not collect money). Once you start making a certain amount of money, you need to…[Read more]

It should be okay, but you still need to check with your county’s environmental health dept. If they choose to disallow it, there’s not much you can do about it.

Products must be hand-delivered, but since you can have one employee, you can hire someone to deliver for you. You can’t use a delivery service, like UPS.