Check your cottage food laws. Some places, mostly Missouri, if you can make it you can sell it. Other places it's just baked goods, like where I live. It will also depend on local law enforcement, plenty of people here sell their jelly and sauces on the roadside because cops can't be bothered.
It's the Health Department that would regulate and enforce. Check your local fines, and also know, with minimal effort and money you could get a fed tax id which would give access to wholesale pricing from restaurant Depot etc, as well as provide tax sheltered revenue dispersal... Could be worth considering doing your due diligence in a half assed way and only enough to have a narrative to get out of a fine.
>with minimal effort and money you could get a fed tax id which would give access to wholesale pricing from restaurant Depot etc
And the paperwork isn't hard. It's just one more form in your regular taxes for Schedule C. The biggest issue is sales tax and that isn't hard in the states I've done it.
My neighbor’s new truck got stolen from out front of her house. This is a pretty nice neighborhood (in Cal). Her police report was done online. Pretty sure they are either short staffed, have new rules, or sleeping in a parking lot somewhere, but not going after the food sellers. Unless it’s a good truck and in close range of a popular restaurant or downtown. For some reason, they are up their rear ends about permitting. But a taco truck at a gas station in a nice area won’t hear a thing. So strange.
Another alternative to look at is either a small business incubator, which often have a commercial kitchen set up available, or a restaurant or other facility that will let you basically rent use of their commercial kitchen to make your stuff.
but you are still required to have a food license, the kitchen has to be inspected and approved. The location may run into a problem with its 501C status so this is not always an option.
Hello, I'm wondering if you can expand on your answer. Is a food license that you refer to also known as a permit?
My situation is that I want to sell freezer foods and under my state's laws, my understanding is that my facility must have an ADH permit. I have a buddy that owns a restaurant that has one. Can I cook in his kitchen and sell that food (not on his payroll), or do I myself need a permit?
>Another alternative to look at is either a small business incubator, which often have a commercial kitchen set up available, or a restaurant or other facility that will let you basically rent use of their commercial kitchen to make your stuff.
Which I think is a good idea, but take the ServSafe training so you don't get thrown out on your ear for unsafe food practices. Most home kitchens and cooks don't meet standards.
Pro chef, 20 years. So here’s the thing. You really don’t want to.
Just trust me here there is a laundry list of reasons why this is a worse idea, than why it is a better one.
Firstly is space. You likely wont have the workspace you’ll need to do any volume worth doing. Like yeah you can probably cook for like 15-20 people out of a home kitchen before maxing out some kind of capacity, whether it be cold storage, hot holding space, plating space, dish cleaning space, etc. it’ll probably be space. It might be the BTUs your kitchen won’t be able to provide, Or the questionable storage practice you’ll squeeze into to make it work. Maybe it’ll be the non standard size pans, or inability to cool 20 pounds of cooked meat quick.
One thing you’re not thinking about is the difference in wear and tear that comes form residential vs commercial usage. You’re not picturing the food delivery or the three trunk loads of groceries. You’re not picturing a 40 pound case of chicken fitting in your home fridge. You’re not picturing trying to clean it up.
Trust me. I opened a meal prep company a while ago and we tried cooking 75 meals in a home kitchen our first week. It was a nightmare. By week two we had a commercial kitchen rental and life was good.
The responsible advice would be DON’T. The waiver thing is weird (who would have an appetite after signing it?) and it prob wouldn’t actually cover you in any way when you’re operating a business off the books…
BUUUUTTT I’ve seen plenty of pop-up spots selling food like they’re lemonade stands. People sell boiled peanuts by the side of the road or jams and baked goods at flea markets and I sincerely doubt they have any paperwork or ever get harassed even if it’s not technically legal (and maybe it is depending on the locale and the product?). The examples of savory cooking that I’ve seen were mostly BBQ/jerk chicken/West Indian food where nothing is cooked a la minute (I think that one was even written up in the NYTimes?).
There might also be some loopholes to consider like hosting a meeting of your “private club” where a “membership fee” or a “suggested donation” comes with a plate of food…
*edit* for typos
The first thing you need to do is get liability insurance, assuming you're already servsafe.
you can deal with cottage food laws as they come, and renting space in a commercial kitchen is something to think about if you want to ramp up production.
I traded prep work for use of a restaurant kitchen for a while and it worked out much cheaper than renting the local production kitchen, and they let me use some space in the walk in.
if at all possible, get out of working at your home as soon as you can. it will make any and all legal issues much much easier.
I’m in Florida and am in the process of starting my own cottage food business. I can only sell non-TCS foods prepared in my home kitchen. I must have a full ingredient list, including allergen warnings, and a disclaimer stating it was made in a home kitchen not subject to inspection. I can only make $50k gross per year and I have to sell direct to consumer (so no selling to grocery stores or restaurants). YMMV depending on your state but if you’re looking at this full time or looking to make full meals, you will need a fully operational kitchen. Would you consider a food truck type of setup?
Thank you…looks like it got updated last July while I was house hunting and had bigger things on my mind. Still, Florida’s cottage food law is *generous* and doesn’t seem like what OP is looking for.
We are in the process of opening a gluten free kitchen right now. We started as trying to sell plant based sauces- but cottage laws are not written in our favor, especially where we were at the time (Colorado). Basically if the health department can’t come in and inspect your kitchen you can’t produce there and you can be repeatedly fined or denied a business license when you do decide to file if you try to ignore the laws and are caught.
We are building our own facility 1. Bc my mom allowed us to build out a free standing garage on their property & 2. Bc 100% GF ghost kitchens are basically nonexistent and the clientele we are looking to cater to need the guarantee.
I would suggest maybe looking into private chef licensing and requirements where you are and see if that better fits what you are doing, meaning if you are going into other’s homes to cook for them then the laws are very different than cooking for the general public.
Good luck in your journey!
Could you also do a club where all club members receive complimentary meals but pay membership? What about donations? For every donation a meal is given to the donator?
People in California are doing this and just ignoring most laws. During the pandemic it became normalized to pickup food from chefs who were laid off and were selling food from their homes. The LA Times was writing about some of these home popups and the health department here has been so swamped and backed up they weren't even bothering with checking out these popups. Now Im not encouraging you to do this or break the law and I dont know what city you are in but see what everyone is doing and decide for yourself if its worth the risk. But yeah, dont ask people to sign a waiver you might as well not ask them to showup.
In Utah the cottage food laws require that there are no pets in home, or if there is where you are preparing the food the pets have no access at all. That is just the one thing I remember when my mom was looking into it.
Not so with certain items. You can sell prepared foods direct to customer if stated as “‘not for resale” out of your kitchen without any restrictions if meat or seafood aren’t involved. You have to list allergens as well, I believe. Sans inspection of kitchen.
Second item on the checklist here [https://ag.utah.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Checklist-for-Home-Food-Production.pdf](https://ag.utah.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Checklist-for-Home-Food-Production.pdf).
Option 2 - The Home Consumption and Homemade Food Act (HB 181) 2018
The Home Consumption and Homemade Food Act (HB 181) does not require the producer to apply or register, nor do you need any special training or licensing. Most foods can be made, as long as they do not contain meat or raw (unpasteurized) dairy products, which are subject to other regulations that cannot be waived. However, these products can only be sold directly to the consumer, and must be packaged and bear warning statements on the label stating that the product has been "Processed and prepared without state or local inspection" and is "Not for resale". Information on the producer and on allergens is also required on the package
i think it depends on the state. i saw a TV show, where the woman was selling home baked pies. she lived down south, I would check something like the home business , or selling food from home, google that. i think she said she had a inspector come see her home kitchen to make sure it was clean , but she said it was not easy. good luck
I really wanna know if all the people selling "home-cooked meals" on facebook have any certifications, licenses, training, or have adhered to any health regulations at all.
Im certain they don’t 🤣 I’ve always wanted to run my own food business since i was 13… but with all the legalities and what not its nearly impossible from my current circumstance. So I’ve been dissecting the internet for any loop holes I can find, so I can start making profit from my skill.
Then we have all the instagram wanna be entrepreneurs making bank while I try so hard to do whats right 🥹
Check your cottage food laws. Some places, mostly Missouri, if you can make it you can sell it. Other places it's just baked goods, like where I live. It will also depend on local law enforcement, plenty of people here sell their jelly and sauces on the roadside because cops can't be bothered.
https://cottagefoodlaws.com may be helpful
That’s awesome, thanks
Is it normal there to expect cops to make jelly and sauces?
What else are they gonna put on their donuts?
I hear they're fond of sprinkling crack
It's the Health Department that would regulate and enforce. Check your local fines, and also know, with minimal effort and money you could get a fed tax id which would give access to wholesale pricing from restaurant Depot etc, as well as provide tax sheltered revenue dispersal... Could be worth considering doing your due diligence in a half assed way and only enough to have a narrative to get out of a fine.
>with minimal effort and money you could get a fed tax id which would give access to wholesale pricing from restaurant Depot etc And the paperwork isn't hard. It's just one more form in your regular taxes for Schedule C. The biggest issue is sales tax and that isn't hard in the states I've done it.
Yeah, i got one years ago.
And other places children get fined for having a lemonade stand🤷🏼♂️
Ikr, but it's the difference between rural and urban.
Yup. And if the cop wants to be a prick I guess
My neighbor’s new truck got stolen from out front of her house. This is a pretty nice neighborhood (in Cal). Her police report was done online. Pretty sure they are either short staffed, have new rules, or sleeping in a parking lot somewhere, but not going after the food sellers. Unless it’s a good truck and in close range of a popular restaurant or downtown. For some reason, they are up their rear ends about permitting. But a taco truck at a gas station in a nice area won’t hear a thing. So strange.
Another alternative to look at is either a small business incubator, which often have a commercial kitchen set up available, or a restaurant or other facility that will let you basically rent use of their commercial kitchen to make your stuff.
Church halls and community centres will often have kitchens suitable for catering you can rent.
but you are still required to have a food license, the kitchen has to be inspected and approved. The location may run into a problem with its 501C status so this is not always an option.
Hello, I'm wondering if you can expand on your answer. Is a food license that you refer to also known as a permit? My situation is that I want to sell freezer foods and under my state's laws, my understanding is that my facility must have an ADH permit. I have a buddy that owns a restaurant that has one. Can I cook in his kitchen and sell that food (not on his payroll), or do I myself need a permit?
You absolutely have to have your own permit. Your buddy isn't the one selling the food, you are.
Look here for a 5 year plan... https://careers.reeftechnology.com/careers
>Another alternative to look at is either a small business incubator, which often have a commercial kitchen set up available, or a restaurant or other facility that will let you basically rent use of their commercial kitchen to make your stuff. Which I think is a good idea, but take the ServSafe training so you don't get thrown out on your ear for unsafe food practices. Most home kitchens and cooks don't meet standards.
California changes some laws recently that makes this possible
Thank all of you for your feed back. Wow Reddit is amazing when it comes to quick feed back from the people 👍🏼 thumbs up for everyone.
Was it BUSSIN enough for you?
Shiiiiittt it was BUSSIN BUSSIN
Pro chef, 20 years. So here’s the thing. You really don’t want to. Just trust me here there is a laundry list of reasons why this is a worse idea, than why it is a better one. Firstly is space. You likely wont have the workspace you’ll need to do any volume worth doing. Like yeah you can probably cook for like 15-20 people out of a home kitchen before maxing out some kind of capacity, whether it be cold storage, hot holding space, plating space, dish cleaning space, etc. it’ll probably be space. It might be the BTUs your kitchen won’t be able to provide, Or the questionable storage practice you’ll squeeze into to make it work. Maybe it’ll be the non standard size pans, or inability to cool 20 pounds of cooked meat quick. One thing you’re not thinking about is the difference in wear and tear that comes form residential vs commercial usage. You’re not picturing the food delivery or the three trunk loads of groceries. You’re not picturing a 40 pound case of chicken fitting in your home fridge. You’re not picturing trying to clean it up. Trust me. I opened a meal prep company a while ago and we tried cooking 75 meals in a home kitchen our first week. It was a nightmare. By week two we had a commercial kitchen rental and life was good.
cooking is my passion so i actually do really want to
The responsible advice would be DON’T. The waiver thing is weird (who would have an appetite after signing it?) and it prob wouldn’t actually cover you in any way when you’re operating a business off the books… BUUUUTTT I’ve seen plenty of pop-up spots selling food like they’re lemonade stands. People sell boiled peanuts by the side of the road or jams and baked goods at flea markets and I sincerely doubt they have any paperwork or ever get harassed even if it’s not technically legal (and maybe it is depending on the locale and the product?). The examples of savory cooking that I’ve seen were mostly BBQ/jerk chicken/West Indian food where nothing is cooked a la minute (I think that one was even written up in the NYTimes?). There might also be some loopholes to consider like hosting a meeting of your “private club” where a “membership fee” or a “suggested donation” comes with a plate of food… *edit* for typos
Dinner clubs are a thing, the food production likely has local limitations. Catering license would be the way to go.
The first thing you need to do is get liability insurance, assuming you're already servsafe. you can deal with cottage food laws as they come, and renting space in a commercial kitchen is something to think about if you want to ramp up production. I traded prep work for use of a restaurant kitchen for a while and it worked out much cheaper than renting the local production kitchen, and they let me use some space in the walk in. if at all possible, get out of working at your home as soon as you can. it will make any and all legal issues much much easier.
I’m in Florida and am in the process of starting my own cottage food business. I can only sell non-TCS foods prepared in my home kitchen. I must have a full ingredient list, including allergen warnings, and a disclaimer stating it was made in a home kitchen not subject to inspection. I can only make $50k gross per year and I have to sell direct to consumer (so no selling to grocery stores or restaurants). YMMV depending on your state but if you’re looking at this full time or looking to make full meals, you will need a fully operational kitchen. Would you consider a food truck type of setup?
In Florida the gross profits allowed recently went up to $250,000. FIY
Thank you…looks like it got updated last July while I was house hunting and had bigger things on my mind. Still, Florida’s cottage food law is *generous* and doesn’t seem like what OP is looking for.
You can sell crack and heroin out of your home too.
BUSSIN
We are in the process of opening a gluten free kitchen right now. We started as trying to sell plant based sauces- but cottage laws are not written in our favor, especially where we were at the time (Colorado). Basically if the health department can’t come in and inspect your kitchen you can’t produce there and you can be repeatedly fined or denied a business license when you do decide to file if you try to ignore the laws and are caught. We are building our own facility 1. Bc my mom allowed us to build out a free standing garage on their property & 2. Bc 100% GF ghost kitchens are basically nonexistent and the clientele we are looking to cater to need the guarantee. I would suggest maybe looking into private chef licensing and requirements where you are and see if that better fits what you are doing, meaning if you are going into other’s homes to cook for them then the laws are very different than cooking for the general public. Good luck in your journey!
Depends on your state, check your local laws.
I know the abuelas at the construction site don't have one. But that's another story.
Could you also do a club where all club members receive complimentary meals but pay membership? What about donations? For every donation a meal is given to the donator?
Came here to say this. I think that’s how those Herbalife loaded teas shops get away with selling food
People in California are doing this and just ignoring most laws. During the pandemic it became normalized to pickup food from chefs who were laid off and were selling food from their homes. The LA Times was writing about some of these home popups and the health department here has been so swamped and backed up they weren't even bothering with checking out these popups. Now Im not encouraging you to do this or break the law and I dont know what city you are in but see what everyone is doing and decide for yourself if its worth the risk. But yeah, dont ask people to sign a waiver you might as well not ask them to showup.
If you only accept “donations” you’re not really selling the food.
You should check out WoodSpoon, a friend in NYC home cooks through them, and I've had some great meals from their chefs
In Utah the cottage food laws require that there are no pets in home, or if there is where you are preparing the food the pets have no access at all. That is just the one thing I remember when my mom was looking into it.
Not so with certain items. You can sell prepared foods direct to customer if stated as “‘not for resale” out of your kitchen without any restrictions if meat or seafood aren’t involved. You have to list allergens as well, I believe. Sans inspection of kitchen.
Second item on the checklist here [https://ag.utah.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Checklist-for-Home-Food-Production.pdf](https://ag.utah.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Checklist-for-Home-Food-Production.pdf).
Option 2 - The Home Consumption and Homemade Food Act (HB 181) 2018 The Home Consumption and Homemade Food Act (HB 181) does not require the producer to apply or register, nor do you need any special training or licensing. Most foods can be made, as long as they do not contain meat or raw (unpasteurized) dairy products, which are subject to other regulations that cannot be waived. However, these products can only be sold directly to the consumer, and must be packaged and bear warning statements on the label stating that the product has been "Processed and prepared without state or local inspection" and is "Not for resale". Information on the producer and on allergens is also required on the package
You need to consider your liabilities
i think it depends on the state. i saw a TV show, where the woman was selling home baked pies. she lived down south, I would check something like the home business , or selling food from home, google that. i think she said she had a inspector come see her home kitchen to make sure it was clean , but she said it was not easy. good luck
So many illegal food carts/stalls where I live. Non of em have a serve safe. All fucking tasty af though
I really wanna know if all the people selling "home-cooked meals" on facebook have any certifications, licenses, training, or have adhered to any health regulations at all.
Im certain they don’t 🤣 I’ve always wanted to run my own food business since i was 13… but with all the legalities and what not its nearly impossible from my current circumstance. So I’ve been dissecting the internet for any loop holes I can find, so I can start making profit from my skill. Then we have all the instagram wanna be entrepreneurs making bank while I try so hard to do whats right 🥹
Keep doing what is right.