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Photos by Samuel Hoffman | The Journal Gazette
Mary Rice sells homemade items at places such as the Historic
West Main Street Farmers Market.
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Law exemption lets home cooks sell some goods
Rosa Salter Rodriguez | The Journal
Gazette
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Rice credits an exemption in state food laws
with allowing her to set up a business,
which includes selling chocolate crinkle cookies.
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Abby Hardy has loved being part of a family
farm business her whole life, and she has also loved baking for about as long
as she can remember.
Now she’s thinking about combining both – by
selling homemade cookies at her family farm’s roadside stand on Knoll Road in
southwest Fort Wayne.
“I’d like to make frosted sugar cookies in
the shape of ears of corn,” the 27-year-old says, adding that the stand’s sweet
corn is one of its most popular summertime offerings.
So, last month Hardy attended a Web-based
seminar outlining a little-known exemption in state food laws. Since 2009, the
exemption has allowed Hoosiers to prepare a limited array of food products in a
home kitchen and sell them at farmers markets and roadside stands.
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Samuel Hoffman |The Journal Gazette
Kalamata olive bread and berry cobblers
are some of the baked goods
Mary Rice makes and sells.
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The event, “Cooking Up a Food Business in the
Home Kitchen: Opportunities and Challenges of Starting or Growing a Home-Based
Food Vendor Enterprise,” was hosted by the Allen County branch of the Purdue
Extension Service, which has had similar programs around the state.
Roy Ballard, a Purdue extension educator in
Hancock County familiar with the seminar, says the exemption was passed as a
way to spur entrepreneurialism.
“I think people have been very reluctant
until this law to produce foods for sale in their home. This does open it up
for a lot of people to get their toe in the door for food production,” he says.
The exemption means that, unlike other
food-selling or producing establishments, home-based food vendors don’t have to
be licensed, permitted or registered nor have their kitchens routinely
inspected by health officials.
While the lack of red tape may be appealing,
“There’s a lot of limitations on what you can and cannot do,” says Steve
Engelking, small farm coordinator and extension educator for Purdue’s LaGrange
County office, which hosted a seminar in May.
Home-based vendors can sell only
“non-potentially hazardous food products,” which must be labeled with their
ingredients and that the products were produced in an uninspected facility, he
said.
Producers also must test to make sure their
food meets parameters for water content and pH, a measure of acidity or
alkalinity, and kitchens must use proper sanitation, the LaGrange seminar
attendees were told.
Animal products, non-baked dairy- or
egg-containing foods, cut produce, “acidified foods” such as salsas and
low-acid canned goods, such as canned green beans, are not allowed.
Jams, jellies and preserves can be made and
sold under the exemption, but fruit butters and low- or no-sugar fruit spreads
are out. Sauerkraut is okay as a fermented food.
Vendors can’t sell their foods at retail
establishments, such as grocery stores or restaurants, or at festivals.They
also can’t prepare non-hazardous foods and other foods that require more
regulation in the same kitchen. “It’s one or the other,” Engelking says.
Still, the rules leave a lot room for home
cooks, according to people familiar with the exemption.
Other products that can be sold include
breads, cakes, cookies and dessert bars, nuts, honey, candies and confections.
Mary Rice of Fort Wayne says the exemption
helped her set up a business baking bread, pies with locally grown fruit and
her grandmother’s chocolate crinkle cookies.
“They’re a hot commodity,” says the
52-year-old woman, who sells at the Historic West Main Street Farmers Market on
Fridays.
“I do fresh vegetables when they’re in
season, and I do baking in between, and it has improved my business,” she says.
“At the time when I started it, I was unemployed so it brought in more money to
help pay the bills, and last year I did make a nice profit off of it.”
Engelking says local officials are somewhat
split on the effect of the exemption. Some see it as a boon to the county’s
many Amish farm families, while others believe all food producers should follow
stricter regulations because of the large number of tourists who visit the
county and its food-oriented attractions.
LaGrange’s health officials try to nudge home
food producers into becoming regulated food establishments, he says.
Engelking says that many people who buy from
roadside stands or at farmers markets may not know that some products come from
uninspected kitchens and urges caution on the part of buyers and producers.
“My advice to buyers is look for labels. … My
advice to (potential vendors) is get to know the local health (department
enforcement) people. Get them involved early on, and let them know you’re
interested in learning,” he says.
Gonzalee Martin, Allen County extension
educator for agriculture and natural resources, says it’s in vendors’ best
interests to care about food safety to protect their own and their markets’
reputations. He expects interest in home-vendor exemptions will grow as more
farmers markets spring up.
About a dozen people attended Allen County’s
seminar, and more than 175 signed up statewide, although some were not current
or potential food producers, he said.
After hearing about the food restrictions,
Joan Sumter of LaGrange decided against becoming a home-based vendor. Her idea
was to sell slow cooker meals at lunch to local factory workers, but she found
that wouldn’t be allowed under the exemption.
“I’ve been thinking about it for a long-time,
but I think it’s not for me,” she said.
But Hardy says her idea is still on the front
burner.
She says she may start small by selling a few
dozen cookies only on the weekends after the stand opens the second week in
July.
“I have to sanitize everything, so it’s going
to be a process to get started,” she says. “It was a really useful seminar. And
I think we’re going to give it a try.”
©
Copyright 2012 The Journal Gazette
The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Thursday restrained the provincial authorities from taking any coercive action against sugar millers for not commencing sugarcane crushing by the deadline set by the provincial government. A division bench headed by Chief Justice Maqabool Baqar granted this injunction while hearing a petition filed by sugar mill owners who moved the court questioning the legality of a provision of the Sugar Factories Control Act, 1950 that give provincial government powers to unilaterally fix a minimum price of sugarcane.
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