How do you label homemade food products

Posted by Damian Roberti on May 31, 2022

How do you label homemade food products

I'm going to explain to you if you are a cottage food operator, and you're kind of wondering what to put on the label because you're not too sure. I'm going to give you a little tidbit of information about what is required for your food label. If you're preparing food from home, and we're going to get into that right now. So I started

From my mind, the one basic idea is to help other people start food products and food businesses. It could be a crazy challenge to get a food business up and running, but with bargaining food online and over 500 videos, I bring you resources every single week to help you be a success, selling your food and other. So he clicks the subscribe button and let's get started. Outside, there's a nice car.I need to take the weather.

How do you label homemade food products

Alright, so we're going to hop right into it. I want to give you some information and let you know what is required for your label. Of course, if you're producing a food product from home, and then you're not actually getting it in retail stores, but you're selling it at farmer's markets or local events and fairs and festivals, what is required now is a little bit of a disclaimer. Of course, every state has a little twist of their own. So not every state will require you to have this specific information, but all in all, the rules are about the same as far as labeling, because they want to make sure that the food product you're selling directly to your customer is inspected by the state inspected by a health department or even a department of agriculture. So the labeling requirements are slightly different.

It's compared in several ways to a retail-ready package. So this video will cover home-based food product labeling. And then I'm going to delve into a little bit of how the retail food packaging will work and how that's slightly different. Okay, So let's get right into it. So, as you know, as I mentioned in the beginning, every state does have slight variations on what they require. Okay, To be honest, the information I'm going to give you for your product label is going to really encompass the gist of what's really important to not only inform the customer of what's inside the food product, but also that there's something that's going to protect you. If someone has an allergic reaction, or if they're looking for an allergen warning, or they need to know exactly what's in the ingredients, it's going to be kind of a protective thing for them as well.

How do you label homemade food products

A lot of food entrepreneurs don't really look at it that way, or don't even think about that. But the information on the label is really crucial to either selling a product or not selling it. Most of the consumers' decisions are based upon the information that they get on a food product are obviously going to be either they're going to buy it or they're just going to walk away from it. So let's get started. Number one, the business address Now, this was actually a question that was really interesting because a subscriber asked about this. He actually was not very comfortable having to put his home-based food business address, which is, of course, your home, on the actual label itself. Now, if the state requires it, which 99.9% of the time they do, the reason why they do that is that they want to have a kind of traceability, the idea that they could go back to where the food was produced.

If they have to come in and do an inspection, or if they have to follow up on something, or if somebody gets sick, God forbid, they want to know where it actually comes from. And that's, of course, why you see almost every single food retail product that you see out there that's manufactured. They've got to have an address or a place of origin that they can trace a product back to. You'll notice this on a variety of different foods where you'll see things like a lot number or even a production date in a specific facility. Manufacturers with a large number of assays, such as Hershey's or Campbell's soups, have each facility labeled on the specific can, box, or bag.And there's a reason for that, because they want to know where it comes from.

How do you label homemade food products

So going back to the type of label information that I just spoke about, they want to know, where's your address? If that's the case, they have to contact you or follow up with it. So their business name must include a business address.So if it's a Damian's chocolate chip cookie company or whatever, you could put that on there as well. So you have the business name. It has to be the name that you're incorporated under. So if it's Damian Chocolate Chips, LLC, I would have to put that right on the label as well. And the next one up would be the ingredients. Of course, now the ingredients are something that you would have to put on the label to make sure you cover every little thing that's in there, because if a customer or even a customer's child actually has a wheat sensitivity, or maybe it's a cookie that uses a certain flour, it's rice flour instead of regular wheat flour.

And since they have allergies to that, they want to know what is in it. So it's a really quick side note. The more information you can give your customers about educating them on what is in your food products, to tell you the truth, you're going to sell more products. So the least amount of information you put on there, it's going to leave a little bit of a question in the consumer's mind, and they're just going to put it back, or they're not going to even buy it. The more information you can give them to truly inform them on their decision, the better.And I know that may sound like you're kind of overthinking it, but it's really not. It's great to inform your customers because if they love your product and it's clearly stated that it has this, this, and this, and everybody in the house can eat it, they're going to come back and buy way more of it.

How do you label homemade food products

So it's something that's really beneficial for you and your food business. Okay, So the ingredients are now required in some states in order of importance, from the most important to the least important.So the most pro-prominent ingredient that you use in the product that goes first, and then down to the next step, is the phone number. Now, again, this I've actually noticed in some of the research I've done for cottage food businesses in different states, the phone number for the business is not always required on there. Check with your state specifically to see what they require for your cottage food label. And the phone number is something that, again, it's a traceability issue. They just want to make sure that they have the ability to go back and they can contact you or follow up with you.

Now, the other thing that's really beneficial about that is when you start a home-based food business, what I would recommend, and this is a great tip, is that you get a second phone line dedicated to your home-based business. Okay? If you don't want to give out your phone number for your home, but you have a home-based food business, a lot of states will allow you to do that. That's perfectly fine. As long as it's the phone number, going back to the home where it's produced, get a home-based phone number, and that way the customers or someone has a question, or, Hey, you know, I'd like to order 20 of those and have you meet me at the next festival or fair or farmer's markets. So secret is wonderful.They can contact your business line and not bother you at your home number.

How do you label homemade food products

Okay, Now, the other thing is your product name. This is something that a lot of states do require, and if you've got a name, and what I mean by name is if it's a certain type of chocolate chip cookie, then you could put chocolate chip walnut cookie, okay. If it's something like white chocolate macadamia and so on and so on, or chocolate covered pretzels, that's the name of the food product. They would want that on the label as well. This is the most crucial.And I personally put it on everything that we make. Of course, we're at a commercial license facility. It's much different, but when we started from our home, I put it on there anyway, and this is a legal thing that I kind of do to protect myself. And you really should do this. Even if the state doesn't require it, the county doesn't require an allergen warning.

So anything that you're producing in your kitchen that could cross contaminate a product and get somebody sick, you want to put it on your allergen warning. And those are some of the most basic allergens, such as wheat, soy, dairy, eggs, nuts, peanuts, or any type of tree nut, put that on the allergen warning, just to make sure that the consumer knows you're making it in a kitchen that could potentially get cross-contaminated with those allergens. Because you really don't want, I mean, I would hate to see any children or children get really sick or affected by something like that. But it's also adults or anybody with a certain type of allergy. You really want to protect yourself. Because if you put that on the label, that is something that will help keep people away from buying your product who may have really big sensitivities to certain types of ingredients.

Okay. And then lastly is the statement. This is, it's a, it's a basic statement. And what I'm going to do is pop up right on the screen. Here. There is another label right there. And that is going to show you the statement. These are statements that basically let the consumer know that the food product is not being produced in a commercial facility, but actually at a home kitchen. And it may not be inspected by the state, may not have health board inspections or anything like the department of agriculture, because in a lot of States, they don't do inspections for home-based food businesses. And of course, like I mentioned, not to sound like a broken record, but every state does vary. So they may or may not come in and inspect, but you need to have the statement on there. So your customers know that it's not being produced in some type of facility where the department of agriculture goes in and looks at it, or the health department comes in every month or every six months to inspect.

How do you label homemade food products

And that statement is really, again, something to protect you more so than the consumer, because that way they know that it's not being produced in a commercial facility. So I hope that those tips tips help you out understand, and kind of navigate through the the labeling questions that you have. Now, what I would recommend you do is to go to Google. If you want to look up your state specifically, here is a great tip of how to do that. If you're in Idaho, okay, I want you to type into Google cottage, food law, and then the state, whatever state you're in. If it's Idaho, I was using that as an example, you could do cottage food law, and then Idaho and what'll happen is the first probably a two or three lists they're on Google, the websites that pop up, those are going to be the information set up by the state.

Most of the time, those are government websites, the state of set up and they'll have much more information, of course, in the description down below, I can't list every single state's website, but that's a really simple trick to help you educate yourself on your state. Alrighty. So with that being said, I'm going to wrap it up. And again, if you have some more questions, let me know down in the comments section. If my video was helpful, please do give me a big thumbs up. If you have any questions, like I said, always ask me and I'll get to them as soon as possible. And if you looking for more information, there are two more videos and you can click on those take care.

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