James McKenna

Krystle, am I understanding correctly that you want to make your CFO products at your mom’s shop? That wouldn’t be allowed. You can only make products for your CFO from your own home. In fact, the entire production process, including packaging and labeling, should be contained to your home and shouldn’t happen in your mom’s shop. Then you would…[Read more]

The health dept is correct. You are a CFO, and your mom would have to be a food processing establishment. Since a CFO can’t be a food processing establishment (by definition in the law), you can’t both be in the same business. It is possible to do what you want to, but you need to create two separate businesses — one for you and one for your mom.…[Read more]

Holly, I don’t think you’ll make much progress until you contact the health dept directly. It doesn’t appear that this will get added to the approved food list anytime soon.

You need a commercial license: http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial

Hi Justine,
I was wondering if you’ve made any progress getting licensed to sell fermented products. I’ve found it’s very hard to get any info in CA.

You can see the CDPH’s clarification in question 9 of their FAQs. The last sentence in that question, about selling outside your county, is no longer true for direct sales, which can now be made anywhere within the state.

Sorry, I’m really only familiar with the laws for items produced from home… food trucks have a completely different set of laws. I’d recommend you talk with the health dept to determine the easiest path for you to take (which probably wouldn’t involve the cottage food law, since you already have a food truck).

Generally speaking, any type of food that needs to be refrigerated is not allowed. Homemade mayo and garlic/oil mixtures are not allowed, and you would need to use a commercial kitchen to produce them. http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial

First of all, thank you for the response, very helpful.

What about a type of aioli with only garlic and oil as ingredients (no dairy)? Is there any place I can call to get more details on what is allowed and what is not?

Thank you again!

I don’t think you have to have liability insurance, though some venues (eg farmers markets) may require it.

I think you could use that code, but a more accurate one may be 44529, because likely you will be selling your products outside your home.