Tom Giancola

No — the food must not require refrigeration. http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial

No — you need to use a commercial kitchen. http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial

Sorry, I don’t know either. I would think that it would be allowed, but I can’t verify that. You will need to call your health dept for the answer.

I don’t think that’s allowed, but you could call the health dept to see if the exemption for donated baked goods extends to online sales.

I’m not sure if MD’s cottage food law allows spices, but I do know that you can’t sell online, nor could you sell interstate. To do those things, you need to use a commercial kitchen: http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial

I don’t believe food swaps fall under any regulation, since there is no money trading hands and people aren’t engaging in commerce. California has some extremely strict rules, but I know that food swaps happen in the Bay Area all the time and I haven’t heard of one getting shut down. I assume it would be less strict in MD.

However, the food swaps…[Read more]

That sentence actually refers to licensing requirements from a health or ag dept, which you don’t need. You always need to abide by any local or general business requirements, which could be explained better on the site. Here’s some info about that: http://forrager.com/faq/#starting

You must follow Maryland’s laws, and I don’t think they will allow you to sell in PA.

The reason they are not on the list is because I couldn’t find any firm info online that verified that candy is allowed in MD. However, I also couldn’t find any evidence to suggest that they are not allowed. So I really don’t know, and you’ll need to call the health dept to find out.

The difference is that you are not meeting the end consumers like you would be at a farmers market, so it’s not allowed, as far as I know. Also, it’s not entirely clear what is an allowed food in Maryland, but tortillas are probably not allowed because they’re not baked.