Cottage Food Laws on the Rise

[marmar]

from Civil Eats:



Cottage Food Laws on the Rise

November 14th, 2011
By Susie Wyshak


In a Maine airport shop, I beeline for the local food souvenirs, my eye roving from a set of Stonewall Products over to several local blueberry jams. More than I expected, in fact. One comes from Out on a Limb, a small home jam-making operation that got started thanks to Maine’s cottage food law.

Today about 31 states have so called “cottage food laws,” allowing legal home-based food production on a small scale. The alternative is renting a commercial kitchen, which can cost $10 per hour, more often $25 or higher. Many of the laws passed recently thanks to grassroots efforts by bakers and jam makers eager to generate extra income, build a food community, control their cooking environments, and/or work at home. State guidelines differ, usually prohibiting riskier foods such as refrigerated items.

As a petition gathers momentum in California, along with a Facebook group, I took a look at the challenges and success of a few food entrepreneurs operating under cottage food laws in a time where local food reigns and career “Plan Bs” have become more like Plan A. ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://civileats.com/2011/11/14/cottage-food-laws-on-the-rise/

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. The best Maine made jam is from

http://www.nervousnellies.com/

[customerserviceguy]

7. Darn

I wish I'd have seen their products on my trip to Maine last weekend. I did pick up other local products across New England, as well as some really great beers.

[GreenPartyVoter]

8. You can always order from their website. :^)

[customerserviceguy]

9. Yeah, I got tempted by that!

The only thing is, we have a goodly supply of jams from previous culinary trips, and we don't go through it as fast as we do salad dressings. Bought seven of them on the weekend trip.

But, I just might bite the bullet and pay for shipping on some blueberry products, they taste so darned good!

[GreenPartyVoter]

10. Yes, they do! I wish they still had the Strawberry Marmalade. That was a fave of mine.

[teddy51]

2. As things get worse for many, I for see a form of commune popping up all

over the US and other countries actually.

[Motown_Johnny]

3. Thanks for that, very interesting

[emcguffie]

4. Did you see something a week or so ago, maybe just a few days --

-- about a "farm to table" dinner, with about a hundred guests, at a local farm, being raided by authorities who poured bleach on all the food? Or maybe they forced the hosts to pour bleach on all the food, I forget which.

Because the meat wasn't USDA inspected, and I forget why else.

But the point had been that this was a "farm to table" dinner, with food that didn't go through a commercial system.

It was horrifying.

I fear that there is a counter-movement against local and organic food, obviously by corporate food producers, that is far more powerful than we are.

[Demoiselle]

5. We lost the "Women's Exchange" here in a corner of Philly several years ago.

Turned out they couldn't sell the food made by women in their home kitchens without breaking the city health laws.
There's a very nice caterer using the kitchen in the place now and selling many of the products that used to be contributed by the women of the Exchange, but the change made us pretty sad. "Cottage Food Laws" sound very sensible.

[hootinholler]

6. I don't much care for thier cheese

So lumpy.

[supernova]

11. We have cottage food laws in NC

Since the demise of tobacco as a cash crop 10-15 years ago, our farmers have turned to organic and even gourmet food production feeding a whole host of outlets: farm to fork restaurants, organic markets, and farmers markets. Many people make and sell products from their farms,

I'm negotiating these laws now because I want to start my own candy business. There are some instances where you can get your home kitchen certified and those are baked goods, jams, jellies, and candies. Mostly things that don't have to be served at a certain temp. The laws here require that you have a separate work area, separate storage for your for sale supplies, and no pets. ever. Kids if you have them should be out of the house while you are preparing sale items.

Church kitchens however, remain a grey area, not quite kosher, so to speak, but not covered by the existing laws either.

I have been stymied by the cost of rental commerical kitchen space. :-( But I am applying to a culinary program for January, and I'm hoping if it's feasible, they will let me use the student kitchen in the off hours. :-)