A few of you have asked about my home-based baking business, well I do have some good news.
On May 23rd, Florida's governor signed a bill containing two major changes to the cottage-food law and those changes took effect July 1st.
First, there used to be a $15,000 gross sales limit which was very restrictive. The idea was that cottage-food businesses were not intended to be how someone would earn a living, but rather a way to test the waters to see if the business would grow well enough to warrant switching to using a commercial kitchen. What they found, however, was that the $15k limit didn't provide people enough money to pay for the use of a commercial kitchen and still get the supplies needed to make the products that would yield the $15k in sales.
Now, the limit has been increased to $50k - a much more realistic number that can make the goal of a commercial kitchen more easily attainable or even provide the option of staying home based and earning a halfway-decent living.
Second, cottage-food businesses are now allowed to accept paid orders over the Internet, although still with the limitations of not being allowed to sell out of state or to ***** products via any third-party courier (personal delivery is okay, but still must be within the state). Customers may also make orders for pickup (either at the farmer's markets or the vendor's home).
Toward that end, I have added a store section to my website Right now, it's very basic, since I'm using what's available from Square, rather than a fancier (and more costly), full-featured shopping cart host, but at least it's a way to be able to take customer orders. It's also nice because, this way, customers can order things that I may not always bring to every market (e.g. Irish Soda Bread outside of the time around St. Patrick's Day).
To see my store, go to http://www.cottageoven.com and click on "Store."
On May 23rd, Florida's governor signed a bill containing two major changes to the cottage-food law and those changes took effect July 1st.
First, there used to be a $15,000 gross sales limit which was very restrictive. The idea was that cottage-food businesses were not intended to be how someone would earn a living, but rather a way to test the waters to see if the business would grow well enough to warrant switching to using a commercial kitchen. What they found, however, was that the $15k limit didn't provide people enough money to pay for the use of a commercial kitchen and still get the supplies needed to make the products that would yield the $15k in sales.
Now, the limit has been increased to $50k - a much more realistic number that can make the goal of a commercial kitchen more easily attainable or even provide the option of staying home based and earning a halfway-decent living.
Second, cottage-food businesses are now allowed to accept paid orders over the Internet, although still with the limitations of not being allowed to sell out of state or to ***** products via any third-party courier (personal delivery is okay, but still must be within the state). Customers may also make orders for pickup (either at the farmer's markets or the vendor's home).
Toward that end, I have added a store section to my website Right now, it's very basic, since I'm using what's available from Square, rather than a fancier (and more costly), full-featured shopping cart host, but at least it's a way to be able to take customer orders. It's also nice because, this way, customers can order things that I may not always bring to every market (e.g. Irish Soda Bread outside of the time around St. Patrick's Day).
To see my store, go to http://www.cottageoven.com and click on "Store."
If blueberry muffins have blueberries in them, what do vegan muffins have?