Marcia Shell

It depends on what state you live in, but in almost all states, cheese cannot be an ingredient in any cottage food item. Baking dried tomatoes into bread will probably be allowed. Jalapenos are less likely, but possible if they’re baked in the bread.

The major differences are that the basic law lets you only sell $20K of product at a few select venues, and it’s much easier to get going with that one. I tried to cover the differences in-depth on the law pages:
http://forrager.com/law/new-hampshire/
http://forrager.com/law/new-hampshire-homestead/

Regarding the filters, I’m not sure what you’re…[Read more]

Hi Anita, I’m very sorry to hear about your sister.

I’m sure there are some organizations in SoCal, but I don’t personally know of any. There are a couple of Facebook Groups for cottage food operations in CA, and I think that would be a better place to get ideas. It would probably be best for you to become a member of those groups (Group 1; Group…[Read more]

NJ doesn’t have any cottage food rules, exemptions, etc. Since the doughnuts will be made in a commercial kitchen, this should be possible, but I’m not sure of the specific rules. You will still need to label them (probably in the commercial kitchen), get a food business license, etc. Since you are not actually preparing the food, and the baker…[Read more]

I’m pretty sure you need to use a commercial kitchen to produce your products, and you should contact the health dept about how to get licensed. http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial