Happy Kitchen

Miasha, I’ve listed the basic info, along with external resources here: http://forrager.com/law/virginia/
I am not familiar with any significant websites for Virginia.

Most people make labels themselves and print them at home. Some also use online print shops to produce their labels.

I don’t think you can sell home-brewed kombucha. You’ll likely need to use a commercial kitchen: http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial

The dept that manages zoning in your area will likely determine whether a farm stand is allowed where you live. You should also check with the ag dept to see if they have a requirement for what a farm stand needs to be (for instance, it might need to primarily sell produce). Sometimes the requirements for this are county-dependent.

You will not be able to use the cottage food law. Instead, you need to get a commercial license: http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial

No, but you can probably sell dried pasta under the law. For fresh pasta, you need to get a commercial license: http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial

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…[Read more]

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…[Read more]

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…[Read more]

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…[Read more]

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…[Read more]

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…[Read more]

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…[Read more]

Since it has cream in it, it’s unlikely that it will be allowed. Often fudge is made with evaporated or condensed milk, and it’s possible that a fudge recipe made with cream would not be allowed.

But really, it’s entirely up to your environmental health dept to decide. If they aren’t familiar with the law, then they can seek guidance from someone…[Read more]

Have you called your health dept yet? Most of the questions you asked don’t have general answers and would be determined by your county or city. It’s not necessarily true that you can run your food business under the LLC that you already have, though sometimes corporations can have multiple businesses associated with them. Basically you just need…[Read more]