Do you need a license to sell bake goods from home in Texas?
And can I sell bake goods outta my home in Texas? Well in this video, we're gonna cover what permit or license you may or may not need in order for you to legally sell your bake goods from home. We're gonna dive into that question right now. All right, so welcome back to Cottage Foods Laws. This is YouTube's premier home based food entrepreneur channel. We are bringing you content and information to help you launch a food business from home. Giving you plain and simple and easy to understand videos, so you can get started as soon as possible making food from home and selling it. Now, the question about baked goods in Texas, you can sell baked goods from Texas from your home. You can sell bake goods from home, but the idea of having a license or permit, well, you don't need one. If you actually do not need a permit from the local health department to a starting home based food business, or even a home based baking business in Texas.
Do you need a license to sell bake goods from home in Texas?
As a matter of fact, it is prohibited for the health department to interfere with your cottage food business, unless of course there is someone complaining about your food. They'll have to of course follow up for the safety of the consumer. But all in all, you do not need to have a permit from the local health department. Now, with that being said, though, you need to make sure you follow a couple of different things. Now, you need to make sure that you sell directly from your home to the customers. Also direct delivery to customers is available as well. So if you have someone that places an order for, let's say a cake and you wanna deliver it to your customer locally, you can actually do that. At farmer's markets and food stands, county fairs, local nonprofits, and such of different events going on in the community, you are definitely allowed to as well. Now, keep in mind that if you are gonna operate a business, even though you don't technically need to have a permit or license in the state of Texas to do this, you should definitely look into creating an LLC.
Do you need a license to sell bake goods from home in Texas?
What that is a Limited Liability Corporation that allows you some protection, some legal protection. The very sad thing about having a sole proprietorship is that it may not actually protect you if you end up getting sued or have some liability issues for your product, as well it might even benefit you to get a small food business policy insurance as well. Now, what that means is that that will give you an insurance policy to cover your baked goods while you're selling them. Again, this is not something that is required or of a necessity in the state of Texas for you to get going. But it's definitely a few layers of protection to help you when you start your business, and potentially as it grows, it will give you an opportunity to grow your business without having to question whether or not you need to incorporate, cause you've already done that. Now, a couple other things you need to be sure of, and we can't actually answer that question here on this video is about your homeowner's association and whether or not it's okay for you to run a business from home.
Do you need a license to sell bake goods from home in Texas?
You do have to let them have a kind a heads up, let them know what you're doing, because many homeowners association bylaws will require you to give them notification if you're operating any type of business, let alone a cottage food business. But do let them know, just so they're aware. Now, when it comes to the local municipalities and such, they don't necessarily have the legal authority to stop or overregulate that industry in Texas. So that's not actually a good thing for you cause you're not needing a permit or license from a local government agency. The other thing to think of, as we mentioned briefly before about insurance, don't assume that your homeowner's policy or even your renters, if you're renting a home by the way, and you want it to operate a business, you need to also let your landlord know, just give them kind of a heads up as to what you're doing. Because many contracts too, within the agreement of renting or leasing a home, have that stipulation in there that if you're running a business, you need to let the owner know, which is normally really not a big deal, but do give 'em kind of a heads up.
Do you need a license to sell bake goods from home in Texas?
But you wanna make sure that insurance policy that you get is covering the business itself, because your homeowner's policy doesn't necessarily do that. That is strictly for the home itself, the dwelling and such, if there's any issues with the house, like a standard policy for your home, but that doesn't necessarily include business insurance. Now lastly, one thing that's really crucially important to understand is that in Texas, you can have people within your family or friends help you with your cottage food business for instance, that is perfectly legal. And if you also actually are allowed to hire employees and have people working for you, just keep in mind that if they are working for you or with you and you are not there supervising, because this is your business, then they will need to have a food handler's card. That is something a lot of people don't know about in Texas, but you do have to have that food handler's card. So you understand it's basically an exam that you go through, a course, and you understand how to handle food, how to protect it, how to keep it refrigerated, what temperatures handling food safely, safety, and all that good stuff. So that's something you definitely need to look into as well, get a food handler's card. But all in all, you don't need a permit nor do you need a license in Texas. So if you wanna look for additional information, check out these videos here. they're going to give you some additional resources, absolutely free. Make sure you subscribe and check out our other videos here on Cottage Foods Laws. We also have other YouTube channels that help you, the food entrepreneur, get up and running. We'll see you on our next video.