Kathy Lieber

Hi Paige, sorry for the late reply!
1. They should be allowed. I don’t think it matters whether vegetables come from land or sea.
2. Depends on the county, but if it was rejected, I would escalate it up to CDPH, and they should be able to tell your county that your products are approved.
3. I believe veggie chips that are baked or fried are allowed.

Jonathan, you can sell perishable baked goods at farmers markets by producing them in a commercial kitchen and getting a different license from the health department.

There is no legal way to sell them from home, or to sell homemade perishable baked goods, except for building a commercial kitchen on your property (which is very complex and costly…[Read more]

Nunuz, I think it’s important to know that most of this kind of info can’t be found online. You need to contact your health dept, the planning division, etc and wait for them to get back to you. It usually takes quite a bit of patience.

However, generally speaking, in addition to the CFO permit you will likely need a business license, and yes…[Read more]

I don’t know what things are like in California, but I can tell you what I know based on my own experience and a little Google.
If you have a cfo class A you can sell to people who stop by your place to buy what you made there, and you can sell baked goods at a community event located in the county where you have the cfo registered, but that is…[Read more]

If you sell the items you are describing, but leave off the custard and cream, you will be in compliance. But I bet the pastry is a little too dry without the custard or cream. To sell prohibited foods to children, the immunocompromised, and the elderly is very bad practice.

Running a bake sale for a charitable cause falls under different rules, but in this case it sounds like the funds would be for your family’s use (not donated to a nonprofit).

So in that case, if we want to get really technical, the answer is yes, in CA you’d need a permit to legally sell baked goods, and zoning laws might prevent you from selling…[Read more]

For the fruit blossoms, I don’t know but I doubt it. For the second, it probably depends on your county. Some counties will be very strict and will say no to anything that’s not on the official state list of allowed foods. Either way, I recommend that you contact your local environmental health dept for clarification on whether you can make these items.

Thank you so much for your timely (and insightful), very much appreciated! I had a follow-up question: are fruit blossoms considered fruits under the Cottage Food Law or would they be another category? And I guess a second question, lol – are DIY saline solutions something covered by the Cottage Food Law (the saline solution would be dialed in for…[Read more]