ashley renee

Betsy, the vinegar wouldn’t be a problem, but I am almost sure that your health dept won’t allow a mustard containing egg. In that case, I don’t think tests are going to help you. If you want to sell a mustard without egg, then you probably won’t need to get it lab tested.

Cara, the health dept should know the rules since they are the dept that is in charge of enforcing them. If they can’t give you an answer, then there may not be one.

As long as you’re using a commercial kitchen, then you should be able to do this with the proper licenses. http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial

I don’t know of anyone who has compiled a list of counties, but perhaps some health dept has one. Try calling up Cook County and seeing if they know more. If you can’t find a list, it’s possible that one doesn’t exist. If you spend the time to create one by contacting every county’s health dept, I’d be happy to incorporate it into the law page so…[Read more]

Can anyone tell me which counties we can operate as a home baker to sell baked goods from home? Im new to this and new to Illinois as well and not sure where to find out which counties allow this. Thank you

I’m not sure if that is allowed under the cottage food law. The law recently changed to give health depts the ability to allow other types of nonperishable foods, so I recommend that you ask your health dept. If you want to pop the popcorn at the market, you wouldn’t be able to use the cottage food law.

I just checked out CFR 21 again, and although that is usually pretty confusing to me, it does look pretty clear that a blackberry jam needs a 47/55 ratio. Also, this seems correct to me… jams and jellies typically need more sugar than fruit.

In the case of the CFO jams you’ve seen in the market, that’s likely a mistake by the producer. In the…[Read more]

It would not be legal. Aside from the fact that your box sale likely wouldn’t sell well without the cookies (the box is not really what you’re selling), typically food laws place the same requirements on publicly-available foods, regardless of whether there is a charge for them or not.