J.R. Ewing

Certain cottage foods cannot be sampled in their prepared state, such as dip mixes. The ability to sell roasted coffee does not include prepared coffee, but some states do allow the sale of coffee and tea because those are low-risk items. You should contact the ag dept to learn about the rules for selling prepared coffee.

I believe that you would need a commercial kitchen to sell either pizza or pasta. You can’t use the cottage food law. http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial

Are you not able to create a domestic kitchen because you have pets, I assume?

I’d recommend that you start by selling your jams and chutneys locally with the basic cottage food law, before trying to sell online.

If you want to sell online, I don’t know of any loophole that would prevent you from needing to get a commercial kitchen and properly…[Read more]

Thank you for responding David.

I got a reply back from someone from the TN.gov office. They don’t know how to handle this either. They’re trying to get some information for me.

It’s a unique setup, for sure. I don’t think I’ve heard of anything quite that elaborate, though I do know CFOs who pool money to buy ingredients wholesale from existing suppliers.

I can’t claim to know anything more than UT’s ag dept, so you’ll have to wait for responses from them, but I will say that a number of states are fine with flours and…[Read more]

As long as all of the proceeds go to the nonprofit, usually there is an exemption that you can use: http://forrager.com/faq/#nonprofit

I don’t think that spice blends are allowed, but I’m not completely sure, since the law recently changed. If you could sell them, it would only be at farmers markets. You can contact the health dept to check.

Since you are making the sale, this is an indirect, out-of-state order. She needs to have a license that will allow indirect and out-of-state sales, which may not be allowed with a TN domestic kitchen license. There’s a very good chance that she will need to open a commercial bakery in order to do this. Unfortunately, I can’t give a definitive…[Read more]

No — to sell pet food in Illinois, you need to use an approved facility, and you need to contact the ag dept.

Sales need to be made directly between the customer and producer. A farmers market wouldn’t be able to take orders on the behalf of a vendor. A producer could probably do a paper order (pre-order) one week at the farmers market and collect money then, and then fulfill the order at the next week’s market. But I don’t think anything beyond that…[Read more]

The cottage food laws are only if you want to use your home kitchen. You could use the cottage food law to sell your seasoning, but you’d have to adhere to the restrictions listed under the law.

If you want to ship and/or sell out-of-state, you’ll need to use a commercial kitchen and get the appropriate license from the health dept. It will…[Read more]