Jeanetta

Typically the answer would be no, but someone did say that their ag dept allowed them to do it: http://forrager.com/law/south-carolina/#comment-51505

If the retail location is a food establishment, then I’m almost certain that you can’t sell there, even though you own it.

As far as I know, having a pet anywhere in your home prohibits you from being able to sell homemade food. Your dog can never enter the house. I believe the ruling is that pets cannot be “in the building” of any business that manufactures food for sale.

You should be using your home’s kitchen… if you wanted to build or use a separate kitchen on…[Read more]

Sorry! I just saw your earlier post in the Illinois forum so I’m deleting this one.

It sounds like your pretzels would fall under the “baked good” category in the law (please note that this site only gives a summary of the law; see the resources section for the law itself). You should be able to sell them as a cottage food operation. Sorry if it was confusing, but “Pretzels” is listed as a category in the “Snacks” section:…[Read more]

I’m not sure if you need some sort of certification for gluten free labeling, though I do know that there are certain quantities that you need to stay under. By making this health claim, you need to place a nutrition facts panel on your label, which is an extra expense and process.

Labeling a product as organic can be very complicated and…[Read more]

As long as they’re baked (not fried), you should be able to do this as a cottage food operation: http://forrager.com/law/illinois/

You need to use a commercial kitchen and your business won’t have many limitations: http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial

Thanks for the response and that’s good to know, though it is possible to make salsa in a way that is non-potentially hazardous. It sounds like the dept is generally staying away from salsas at this time, which are known (along with other canned vegetables) to be one of the most risky cottage foods.

I think that fruit-only, thoroughly-baked pierogis would be allowed, and all other types of pierogis would not be. You can call the dept at 800-292-3939 to see exactly what they will or will not allow.

I really don’t know, as this is a sourcing issue that health depts in CA seem to be very particular about, especially since you’re sending an ag-based product across state lines into CA. If you followed the appropriate regulations to legally get your raw wheat it into CA (may not be possible), then your sons would have to check with the…[Read more]

I think that would be allowed, but double check with the dept at 800-292-3939

John, you may be able to can the salsa under Wyoming’s cottage food law, assuming that your salsa has a pH of 4.6 or below. You would need to check with the ag dept (Dean – 307-777-6587 or Linda – 307-777-6592) to see if they would allow salsa in general, or if your product needs to be tested. You wouldn’t be able to sell the salsa uncanned.

You…[Read more]

You can sell dry tea with the cottage food law, but you can’t sell homemade brewed tea. If you want to sell (non-homemade) brewed tea outside of your home, you’d need a commercial license: http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial

You should call your ag dept to make sure there aren’t any exemptions you can take advantage of.

You don’t need a license from the health or ag depts, but your county still might require other licenses/permits, like a business license. And even if they don’t, the farmers market itself may require certain permits. Farmers markets also have the ability to turn you away because you’re homebased, even though you’re a legal business. So it could…[Read more]

No, it wasn’t passed and there is still no cottage food law in New Jersey.

I am going to be building a labeling system into this website, but that won’t be available for at least a few months. I know there are companies that will take over printing your labels, but I don’t know any that will also figure out how to arrange the label. You could hire a designer to make your labels, but that would probably be expensive.

A…[Read more]