Kneading to Bake

Often you are exempt from having to charge state sales tax, but you may need to charge local sales tax. It also depends on where you are selling (may have to charge it at a fair, for instance). http://forrager.com/faq/#sales-tax

Yes, you usually do. Here’s more info: http://forrager.com/faq/#home-address

I don’t think you can sell from your retail store, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask the ag dept to see if they will allow it.

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

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]

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]