Want to start a food business from your home? Here’s the summary of the new law.
SUMMARY OF THE TEXAS COTTAGE FOOD LAW:
1. Food must be sold from your home, directly to another consumer. No sales at farmer’s markets, county fairs, roadside stands, local festivals, craft shows, wholesale, or resale to restaurants, grocery stores, coffee shops, etc. The food must be purchased at your home.
2. Foods are limited to non-potentially hazardous baked goods (cookies, cakes, breads, Danish, donuts, pastries, pies, and other items that are prepared by baking the item in an oven), canned jams, jellies, and dry herb mixes. THESE ARE THE ONLY FOODS ALLOWED. If you do not see it on this list, it’s not allowed.
3. Annual gross income from sales of above food items must be $50,000 or less.
4. The local health department may not regulate these home cottage food operations, but they must maintain a record of any complaint made. This is a consumer safeguard, so that consumers can call the local health department and check for complaints on their “cake lady” before they purchase, if they wish.
5. The food items sold must be labeled with the name and address of the cottage food production operation, and a statement that the food was made in a kitchen that has not been inspected by the health department. We are waiting for the Department of State Health Services to develop the specific rules for labeling. Per Representative Kolkhorst, the label does not have to be affixed directly to the food item, it can be handed to the customer.
6. Food must not be sold through the internet. This simply means that these operations can’t set up a shopping cart on your web site and let people purchase blindly. The “no internet sales” clause goes back to the fact that we ARE small “cottage” operations, and helps ensure that sales are local and face-to-face, which is in keeping with the spirit of the bill. Again, it does NOT mean that web sites are prohibited. Have a web site! Have a Facebook page! Just don’t allow purchase and payment on the internet.
7. It will go into effect 9/1/2011.