Cookaholics Bulletin Board

I was reading about these laws today. You can make certain types of food and sell them without getting an actual license from the health department. You do have to put a sticker on the product listing the ingredients and a disclaimer about where the product was made. Your houshold sales have to be less than $15,000 a year. Has anybody else looked into these laws in their states?

There is a similar law here in MN. You can sell at the local farmer's market without any license, inspection, etc. up to $5000/year (I'm not 100% sure on the amount).

Of course, you expose yourself to liability when operating under this kind of exemption. If someone gets ill and claims it was from your food they could sue you personally. Even though you might prevail you would still have to defend the suit. (One of the downsides of working with lawyers is you think about that kind of stuff all the time.)

Per the Cornell University Cooperative Extension:

"New York doesn't currently have a Cottage Food Law which allows its citizens to operate a home based bakery or food processing business. The current law allows members of the farming community to operate a home-based food processing business. Non hazardous foods such as candy, cakes not requiring refrigeration, cookies, brownies, two-crusted fruit pies, breads and rolls, fruit jams and jellies, dried spices and herbs can be produced in home kitchens. A review of processing procedures may be required for certain products before exemption is granted."

There's a long list of foods that can't be home produced. But I do hope this will change!

Colorado just passed this into law earlier this month. Wahoo!!!

Amy

Over in Kalamazoo they have project to provide food entrepreneurs with access to a commercial kitchen.

http://www.fairfoodmatters.org/candokitchen.php

They just set these up in Evanston. You do have to get a sanitation liscence. And you can sell at the farmer's market!

We were just wondering the other day what Michelle (vtcook, I think...) had to do to establish her kimchi business.

A Cottage Food Law is desperately needed in California and the Bay Area. We don't have one yet. Seems unlikely, given the demons our health dept are about strict commercial cleanliness. For example, they just had to cancel the cooking demos at Norway Day because of the health dept.

Darcie, where are you located in MN? I am in Rochester and to sell anything at our farmers' market we have to have grown some of the product. Bakers have to show that their products contain items from their farm or at least other items that you sell have to have been grown from your farm. I don't have any farmed items but had been contemplating selling some gluten-free flour mixes (a health issue, not a choice) . Deb

Faribault's farmers' market allows people to sell homemade baked goods as long as they were made in the city; no ingredient restrictions. If you want to sell produce you have to have grown it in the city (within 5 miles I think). I don't know about mixes.

The Minneapolis farmers' market allows any kind of vendor. There are a couple of large produce vendors there selling limes for goodness' sake. They are sure not grown in Minneapolis. And they have junky, tacky vendors selling tie dye clothes from China, etc. I just can't go there.