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Jam and preserves
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Selling it

Selling at market

By Dwight Davis, Founder

Updated

On this page4
A market stall is the channel these laws were written for, which is why it is usually the one route open to a cottage producer before anything else is. It is also where the exemption disclosure on your label has to be readable.

What the channel rewards

A market rewards things a shop does not, and a producer who treats it as a small shop leaves most of the advantage unused. The things that work here are the ones that depend on you being physically present, which is the whole of what you are paying the stall fee for.

  • A small size somebody buys without deciding, and a default size they come back for.
  • A product that looks like what it is through clear glass, which is why cloudiness and crystals cost sales here that they would not cost wholesale.
  • A story about the fruit, which is the one thing a supermarket shelf cannot carry.

The disclosure

Most states require a specific disclosure when selling under a cottage food exemption, and several specify where it goes and how large it is. This is the requirement most often got wrong, usually by putting it somewhere tidy rather than somewhere compliant.

Selling under a cottage food exemption generally requires the label to say so, in a form and a type size the state specifies. It is not optional and it is not small print by choice. Check it against your own state before a print run, and the state layer is on cottage food and jam.

What the cap means in practice

The annual cap sounds generous until you work out what it is per market day, and that number is worth having in mind before planning a season. Divide the cap by the number of market days you intend to work and compare it with what you would need to take to make the day worth doing; for some makers those two numbers do not meet.

A sales ceiling on a cottage exemption is an annual number, so a strong season can take you through it. Knowing where you are against it during the year is the difference between planning the next step and being stopped mid-season.

References

Michigan State University Extension. Selling Safe Food: The Michigan Cottage Food Law (E3363), and related MSU Extension guidance on which preserved products the law covers. canr.msu.edu
Penn State Extension. Food for Profit: Commercial Production of Jams, Jellies and Fruit Butters. extension.psu.edu
Written from federal regulation and published extension guidance, not from a laboratory. A standard of identity is a federal floor and your state adds to it. Anything here is a starting point for a conversation with your state department of agriculture, not a determination that you comply.