James McKenna

You will not be able to use the cottage food law. Instead, you need to get a commercial license: http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial

Some counties require every single label with ingredient lists for each and every final product and variation you could possibly make, but I think Sacramento is a little more relaxed about that. However, they may have changed their policy about that, especially considering the fact that their application now asks for “specific foods”. This is one…[Read more]

I agree that it doesn’t make sense from a practical standpoint, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call it discrimination. Although your kitchen has been inspected, a commercial kitchen has to adhere to hundreds of other requirements that your kitchen does not. I don’t think the shipping restriction stems from a food safety concern… rather, it’s a…[Read more]

It’s not possible to do what you’ve described by using your home kitchen. You can either do this with your home kitchen and sell in-state (you can sell online, but shipping is not allowed) by following the cottage food law described on this site. If you want to sell nationwide, you need to use a commercial kitchen and adhere to a different set of…[Read more]

Thanks for the quick response David. As far as the shipping restrictions ,for our direct sales, I agree! The Health Department has inspected my kitchen, as they would a commercial kitchen, and their roll is food safety….right? Not allowing us to ship and allowing a business with a commercial kitchen to is kind of a discrimination. Thier roll…[Read more]

I’m not sure if there’s a definitive answer for this question yet. From what I’ve heard over time, it’s likely that although you can’t ship to the wholesaler (or any other customer), the wholesaler can sell your product by almost any means, including shipping it. It still doesn’t make sense to me why Class B CFOs cannot ship their products within…[Read more]

Since it has cream in it, it’s unlikely that it will be allowed. Often fudge is made with evaporated or condensed milk, and it’s possible that a fudge recipe made with cream would not be allowed.

But really, it’s entirely up to your environmental health dept to decide. If they aren’t familiar with the law, then they can seek guidance from someone…[Read more]

I’m not sure if you need some sort of certification for gluten free labeling, though I do know that there are certain quantities that you need to stay under. By making this health claim, you need to place a nutrition facts panel on your label, which is an extra expense and process.

Labeling a product as organic can be very complicated and…[Read more]

I really don’t know, as this is a sourcing issue that health depts in CA seem to be very particular about, especially since you’re sending an ag-based product across state lines into CA. If you followed the appropriate regulations to legally get your raw wheat it into CA (may not be possible), then your sons would have to check with the…[Read more]

I believe that if the egg whites are cooked to a certain temperature, it will pass the non-potentially hazardous test, but you should check with local health authorities to confirm that the recipe is acceptable.