Fruit leather and dried fruit

Why it is a sensible second line

It uses the same fruit, in the same window, with the fruit that was not good enough for jars, and it sells at a different price point to a different buyer. That combination is rare enough to be worth taking seriously rather than treating as a sideline.

• It uses the same fruit, including fruit too soft for a preserve.
• It needs no glass, which is the second largest cost in a jam.
• It is light, so it ships for a fraction of what a jar costs to ship.
• It sells at the same stall to the same buyer.

What replaces the set as the thing to get right

Nothing has to set, so the whole diagnostic apparatus of this craft does not apply. What replaces it is a different measurement, and it is less forgiving than it looks.

Moisture. A dried product is preserved by having too little water for spoilage, the same principle as the sugar concentration in a jam, reached a different way. Under-dried fruit leather molds, and that failure arrives weeks later in somebody's cupboard, which is the same shape of problem as a jam below concentration.

The exemption question

Whether this sits inside the same state permission as the jam is a separate question with a separate answer, and assuming it carries over is how a second line creates a first problem. Ask the same department the same way you asked about the jam, and ask before the dehydrator arrives.

Dried fruit and fruit leather are commonly on cottage food permitted lists, for the same reason jam is: shelf stable without refrigeration. Commonly is not always, and the list is state law, so ask before you dry a crop.

Where it does not help

It does not use fruit that is already fermenting or molded, any more than jam does. A glut that has turned is a loss in both products.

References