Will
Neophyte
Posts: 7
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Post by Will on Feb 4, 2019 12:30:58 GMT -5
My wife and I have been making chocolate in our home for a while now as a hobby and are looking into what it would take to begin selling. One area I'm having a hard time finding information on are requirements for licensing, inspecting etc. of the space we would be making the chocolate. I know this varies depending on the state (we are in Tennessee) but would appreciate any experiences others could share, specifically around the issue of commercial kitchen requirements. Is a commercial kitchen absolutely required? If we weren't able to rent one and wanted to build one in the spare room in our home what would that entail? etc.
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Post by Ben on Feb 4, 2019 15:46:10 GMT -5
It will be very dependent on the regulations there in Tennessee, but in most states a commercial kitchen is required to produce food products for sale. Most states do have a cottage food law, which could allow you to make chocolate for sale in your home, but generally cottage food laws have restrictions on how much and where you can sell. For example, I think some cap the overall dollar amount of annual sales, and restrict sales to direct sales only (at markets, etc, but not wholesale to retail outlets).
Your best bet with either option would be to contact your health department.
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Post by bmikiten on Feb 5, 2019 23:11:47 GMT -5
Will - I've done quite a bit of research on this before we started selling wholesale about a year ago. This is a brief overview and may or may not apply to your state. I'm in Texas.
1) Cottage food laws apply when the product is sold directly to the consumer. If you sell wholesale (as I do to about 40 stores) then you don't fit under this category. The concept as it was explained to me is that if you sell direct under this designation (food shows, county fairs, Farmer's markets) then the people buying your product can deal directly with you and that relationship is key. There are no third parties (retailers) involved. You can make food at home but are usually required or prompted to follow standard food service guidelines including getting a food handler's license. Yearly volume (ex: $50,000) can come into play in some States as well.
2) If you plan to sell wholesale, the entire story changes. In Texas, we are not inspected locally (like a restaurant) but instead by a State Food Manufacturer FDA official. They can show up at any time and inspect production. My last visit was in the middle of making 3000 samples for the Dallas Chocolate Show and everything stopped for 2 hours while we reviewed the shop, handling practices, sourcing documents and other data. Be prepared to explain your whole process (and documentation) from start to finish.
3) Under the Food Manufacturer designation, you'll need a food handler's license, a food manager license and a food manufacturing license. All can be done on-line and will take one to two days to complete. You'll also need to register with the FDA so that you can list recalls and other safety hazards to the public.
4) From a kitchen point of view, you'll need a three compartment sink, hand sink, washable surfaces (Quat cleaner), be bug and animal free and show that you have proper storage for source and final products. I ended up building a full commercial kitchen where roasters (Behmors and 6kg), my winnower, grinders, conche, melangers, refrigerator, molding equipment and other items are operated. Another room holds the bean storage and another is used for wrapping and storage. There are many commercial kitchen designs on line that you can reference. We don't have ovens or hoods as they aren't required.
5) I also made sure the walls were covered with laminate for cleaning ease and sealed the concrete floor before moving in. The chocolate room is kept between 65F and 75F with low humidity.
6) Don't forget that you'll also need bar codes for your products (one for each variant) or most stores won't carry it.
Hope that helps. Again, each state is a bit different.
Brian
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Will
Neophyte
Posts: 7
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Post by Will on Mar 25, 2019 14:57:13 GMT -5
Thank you both that's all really helpful information. So far my experience has been that no one has definitive answers for anything so it just takes a lot of pushing for definitive answers and asking around until someone can really lay things out clearly. For now I think we're going to stick to the local farmers market and depending on how that goes attempt to move towards being inspected to open up to wholesale and internet sales. Thanks again!
Will
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