Ken Lathrop

Here’s a blog post I wrote about pricing: http://forrager.com/2016/05/the-price-is-wrong/

Angela, I’m sure your mom’s pimento cheese mix is amazing. However, I’m going to be straight up with you… if you or a family member is not willing to market the product, then it’s probably not going to get off the ground. Making amazing products is fairly easy; selling them is very hard — it took me years to learn this. Even Coca Cola still…[Read more]

Arkansas’ cottage food law doesn’t allow spices. You need to use a commercial kitchen to produce them. http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial

Carole, my understanding is that a health dept cannot regulate a cottage food operation. It is possible, I suppose, that a city hall could prevent your business, even though the health dept cannot.

If they say no, I’d recommend making sure that they’re aware of the cottage food law — many govt depts are not. Also, it might help to communicate…[Read more]

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]

Since New Jersey doesn’t have a cottage food law, you’d need to use a commercial kitchen. http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial

I do not think that any cottage food law is sophisticated enough to specify bartering transactions as monetary transactions that count against your sales limit. If it were me, I’d only count monetary transactions against the sales limit, and I’d be highly surprised if ignoring bartering transactions were illegal.

From what I have heard, it would be legal for a commercial food business to ship a product after they have purchased it from you.

Yes, you can sell homemade spices in Utah (at home, at craft fairs, and online), but you cannot sell them interstate. So you could use eBay or Etsy as long as you only sell to buyers in Utah. Otherwise, you need to use a commercial kitchen. http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial

I’m sorry to hear that you were having trouble. I just tried it and it’s working for me. Maybe it was just a temporary server issue or something.

Vanessa, the food safety certificate that Sonia was referring to is probably a food manager certificate. However, CFOs in Florida aren’t required to get food safety training. If you’d like basic training, you can look up a food handler training course.

You don’t need a license from the ag dept, but you may need other licenses to start your business. You will have to check with local officials for the process of starting a business in your area. http://forrager.com/faq/#starting

It’s quite possible that they would not be allowed, given the egg content of macarons, but you have to check with the health dept. If they’re not allowed, you’d need to use a commercial kitchen. http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial

You will need to contact the ag dept to learn about everything you can and cannot do, but generally, you should be able to ship within the state of Ohio (no interstate sales).

Figuring out permitting requires potentially contacting a number of local govt departments: http://forrager.com/faq/#starting