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Megan Shonka with Happy Mango Bakery

Megan Shonka of Papillion, NE shares the highs and lows of her home-based bakery journey, the importance of being involved in her community, and her plans to expand into a brick-and-mortar storefront

Deanna Martinez-Bey with The Fiery Whisk Bakery

Deanna Martinez-Bey of Wake Forest, NC is a multi-faceted food entrepreneur and shares her experience in building a cottage food bakery, writing books, managing social media, and running pop-up events

Anything Is Possible with Emily Vanlandingham

Emily Vanlandingham of New Orleans, LA runs a home bakery that focuses on school celebrations, and shares the triumphs, lessons, and challenges that have come from creating her very unique business

Two Cultures In One with Fawzeya Owda

Fawzeya Owda of Norwood, OH shares her unique journey from home bakery to commercial kitchen when her Palestinian-inspired cheesecake allowed her to build her own American Dream to support her family

How The Coronavirus Pandemic Impacted The Cottage Food Industry in 2020

Recently I was asked to briefly describe how COVID-19 has impacted the cottage food industry this year. Here’s what I wrote:

“The pandemic has impacted everyone differently, but it has impacted everyone. Some cottage food businesses have shut down temporarily or permanently, while just as many others have seen their sales skyrocket. More cottage food businesses started this year than any other by far, and overall, the pandemic has caused a huge surge of interest in this industry.”

That’s a very simplified view of what has been a crazy and complex year.

In this post, I’ll dig into some of the major trends and story lines that impacted the cottage food industry in 2020.

Launch your home bakery business in Wisconsin, legally!

Is the aroma of sweet victory coming from the ovens of Wisconsin wafting your way? Here in our state we can finally – legally – sell homemade, non-hazardous baked goods. Or more specifically, it took over five years, three cottage food bills that never passed and a successful lawsuit so that here in Wisconsin we… [read more]

Starting A Cottage Food Operation – Allowed Foods

In most states, you can only sell certain types of homemade food. Most cottage food laws only allow nonperishable food items, but some states allow almost all types of food, while other states are very restrictive. Learn about what types of homemade food products you can sell under your cottage food law.