HOMEMADE FOOD PRODUCTION: CHALLENGING AMERICAN TRADITIONS

Part One

Over the past few years considerable controversy has brewed over the operation of home baking businesses. An upsurge in the home baking and cake decorating profession have provided many bakers with an effective way to earn extra income.

 In years past, the whole idea of selling homemade baked goods was a popular farmer’s market activity and a way for farmers to make additional revenue. Visit any farmers market today and you will see local farm families selling breads, cakes, pies, cookies, pickled okra, apple butter, jams and jellies. It was home-base food production that set the foundation for cottage laws; and with a looming economic recession, cottage laws may soon provide an opportunity to impact many local communities in a good way. ⁽¹⁾

 Cottage Law Confusion

 Baking and selling non-potentially hazardous food products is not new. Bakers have been selling baked goods allowed under state cottage laws for decades.

 Cottage laws permit home food processors to prepare cakes, cookies, jams, jellies, candies, dried mixes and spices depending on the individual state law. Most sales of these products center on local farmers markets; the gathering place for fresh fruits and vegetables, and home-made baked goods. The major issue confronting any small food processor involves understanding who is responsible for granting permission to process a product and who oversees the food preparation to assure these products are prepared in compliance with state and/or county regulations.

 There is no standardized cottage law that regulates home food processing nationwide; and since each state regulates its own set of home food processing regulations. These regulations may even change depending on the county, city or town where a processor resides; hence, the confusion.

 For example, some of the restrictions set by state cottage laws can include: 

• Home food processors may only sell their products at state sponsored farmers markets
• Home food processors may not produce potentially hazardous food i.e. foods produced with eggs, cheese, fresh vegetables, certain fruits or meats
• Some states will only allow non-potentially hazardous product like cakes, cookies, some fruit pies and breads
• Some states will only allow non-profit organizations to sell non-potentially hazardous products, again limiting those products to baked goods
• Some states may require food processors to build a separate kitchen in their basement or garage with a separate entrance into the facility
• Some states do not allow home-based baking at all and bakers must use a separate licensed commercial facility
• The restrictions are different for every regulatory agency and may conflict between agencies

 Learn from the Experts

 There are a handful of states that do operate successful cottage programs paving the way for small food entrepreneurs to initiate start-up businesses. No one is becoming a millionaire but many are generating added income and optimistic about the future of their food venture.

 The states of Maine, North Carolina, Virginia and more recently Alabama allow home-based baking with some restrictions. This has opened the door for bakers with an entrepreneurial spirit to step out and sell their products with the goal of starting a traditional brick and mortar business.

 Other states interested in adapting “cottage laws”can to look and learn from the programs of states adept at operating and overseeing cottage food production. Managing these programs will not be without challenges but with unemployment in the double digits it may prove beneficial. The idea of creating a program that could partially pay for itself through special taxes, small application fees and licenses could be attractive to legislators.

Part Two of this article will appear in the June issue of Food Entrepreneur.

About the Author:

Detra Denay Davis, owner of Cooking with Denay, operates an online learning center for home based bakers and home food processors. She teaches the wildly popular class How to Operate a Home-Based Bakery: Profits from My Kitchen and formerly taught at the Wake County Public School System Lifelong Learning Program, Raleigh, North Carolina. A former caterer from Michigan, Denay was featured in Bon Appétitmagazine and is an active member of the International Culinary Professionals Association (ICPA), Slow Food (Triangle Chapter), and Southern Foodways Alliance, an organization dedicated to keeping the diverse food cultures of the American South alive. Visit Denay at www.cookingwithdenay.com to learn more.

⁽¹⁾Measuring the Impact of Public Markets and Farmers Markets on Local Economies, (n.d.), Retrieved from http://www.pps.org/markets/info/markets_articles/economic_benefits_of_markets