Sarah

Nita, you are not required to get insurance, but many cottage food businesses do get some to protect themselves, just in case anything goes wrong. In Florida, you’re not allowed to do indirect sales like selling to a store so they can resell your products.

You need to be meeting the buyer, face-to-face, and transferring the product and money in-person. As long as you’re doing that, you’re good! So yes, you can take an order agreement by email as long as you meet them.

Nicole, you are not required to get a license from the health department to sell your food, but it’s very reasonable for your farmers market to require a business license. It’s the same basic license any business of any type would get, and it’s usually pretty easy — you would apply with your city or county. It’s also relatively inexpensive……[Read more]

April, I’m not the ultimate guru on this but I did a little research for Florida (I’m more familiar with California’s tax laws, but Florida’s look similar). The bottom line is that it doesn’t look like you need to charge sales tax.

One important factor for charging sales tax is whether the product is intended to be consumed on the seller’s…[Read more]

Leslie, I’ll try to tackle your questions. Keep them coming!

This site is really dedicated to cottage foods, or value-added homemade foods. If you want to sell uncut fruits and vegetables, then you should be able to do that without any kind of permit. Eggs and milk are a little different… the eggs will probably be okay, though some states have…[Read more]