Requirements for Home Business

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Permalink Reply by Eileen S on December 26, 2011 at 4:36pm

Hi Ken - regulations vary from state to state, county to county and city to city.  Your best bet is to start with your local health department.  They will be able to tell you the laws in your particular location and circumstances.  For example - Florida just passed a Cottage Food Bill that allows home bakers to charge for their products, but they have to abide by certain guidelines.  In Wisconsin, bakers are not allowed to sell baked products out of their homes at all, but must bake and decorate in a licensed, health-inspected kitchen.  Good luck!

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Permalink Reply by Lynne Salmon on December 27, 2011 at 3:06pm

As Eileen said it does vary greatly from area to area - and yes, your local county health dept or dept of ag is where to learn what the requirements are. As I understand it, those places are mainly concerned about cleanlyness. Since you state you could do only 1 or 2 cakes a months it probably won't pay you to follow the requirements.
When I started in this some 30+ yrs ago, after putting an ad in a small, local throw-away newspaper the health dept called me up and told me that as long as I did not advertise they would not bother me; basically be quiet and we will let you fly under the radar :) I doubt today such advice would be given! There are *many* people who are selling their cakes w/o 'following the rules' and not have a problems. It is something you will have to decide about.

The other thing that comes into 'going legal' would be is it allowed in your neighberhood?  That is another problem I ran into when I moved into 'the big city' :)  The city fathers would not even let me teach in my home:(  Only music lessons were allowed (because the mayors wife taught panio!).  I asked something along the lines of me: 'can I have 6 people in to teach them how to bake?' them: ' NO, that would bring  too much traffic into a neighborhood'.  me; 'can I hold a Bible study w/a dozen people every week?" them: "oh, of course, that's fine'.  Now tell me what the traffic impact on the neighborhood is if it's a baking lesson or a Bible lesson??? 
 Personally I would just start charging and not say anythinng. With doing just 2 or 3 cakes a month I bet there would be no problems :)  When/if you get up to doing 6 or 8 cakes a month then you need to make a bigger decession.

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Permalink Reply by June Kowalczyk on December 28, 2011 at 1:06pm

Hi Ken

I am from Ontario, Canada, but a lot of what  Lynne says above is SOooooo true. And unfortunately, it really depends on "who you talk" to in the department who handles this. I was given pretty good advice from a CD store/business. He told me,  number one, the Health Dept in Ontario requires a separate kitchen...period...to produce cakes. Now the rub is.....how many cakes "produced/you make/per week/month"...constitutes enough for a "business"??  As you know, depending on the time of year, etc., that could possibly vary greatly. This owner said as long as I stayed "under the radar",   meaning,  DON'T  go too public with advertising,  ie:  in your local paper, flyers in every supermarket, appearing at numerous wedding shows/functions, notices in your church bulletin. In Ontraio as long as you earn under $30,000 for a small business, they don't bother you much, and you can still write off a certain amount of your expenses.  It is when you attract too much attention the agencies responsible will check you out.  So, gaining customers for your business by word of mouth is really your best bet unless you are prepared to spend big $$$$ to meet the requirements that are set out by law in your area.

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