Who inspects you, and when
Updated
The two layers
The split catches people out because the two layers answer different questions and only one of them is written down where you can read it. Federal regulation tells you what a jam is: the fruit proportion, the soluble solids, what you may call the result. It is published, it is the same in every state, and nobody visits you about it. The state layer asks something else entirely, which is whether you may make this product in this kitchen at all, and that answer is not the same in Boise as it is across the line in Oregon.
| Layer | Sets | Who you talk to |
|---|---|---|
| Federal | What the product must be, and what the label must carry | FDA, through published regulation |
| State | Whether you may make it where you are making it | Your department of agriculture |
The practical consequence is that reading the federal regulation carefully, which is the thing a careful person does first, tells you nothing about whether you are allowed to sell. You can have the product exactly right and still be making it somewhere you may not.
What to do before the first batch
The call is short and the order of the questions matters, because the acidified answer changes which rules apply to everything after it. Ask it early rather than last.
- Call your state department of agriculture and describe the product, including every ingredient.
- Ask specifically whether it falls inside the cottage food exemption, and what the label must say if it does.
- Ask whether the product is treated as acidified, because that is the answer that changes everything else.
- Write down who you spoke to and what they said.
Why they are usually helpful
Because containment is the job. A producer who calls before the first batch is doing their work for them, and the questions are routine ones they answer all week. The conversation people dread is the one that happens the other way round, after a product is already on a shelf, and that one is not routine for anybody.
Write down who you spoke to and when. Not because anyone will doubt you, but because staff change and guidance gets revised, and a dated note naming the person who told you something is the difference between a question and an argument eighteen months later.