TO REQUEST ACCESSIBLE CAPTIONS VISIT GO.OSU.EDU/CCHELP CAPTIONS PROVIDED BY AUTOMATED TRANSCRIPTION. All right. Before I introduce today's virtual Q&A, I wanted to start out by talking about whether this session and whether the conversations were going to be recorded. So just so you guys know, and everybody is on the same page, we will be recording throughout this virtual Q&A. However, we want to respect everybody's privacy and I know that for me, I'm someone, and Laura can probably attest to this as well, we're oftentimes recorded and we don't know how that recording is going to be utilized. And if I know that I'm not being recorded, I might be a little bit more candid and speak a little bit more freely. And part of these virtual Q&As is to create that environment where you all are free to ask us pretty much any question as it relates to home-based foods. So what we have agreed on is that for the first maybe 15 minutes, myself and Katie will be delivering some content, very mini presentation. This isn't meant to be a talk or a webinar. We just figured while we had some folks on, it might be nice to start with a certain topic. Today's topic being about what foods are able to be produced in home settings. So you will see the recording on and that part of the virtual Q&A will be disseminated to other people and may potentially be posted publicly. However, once the quote-unquote presentation is over, we will be stopping the recording. You're going to see us restart recording to start another video that will capture the discussions, capture the majority of the questions being asked. However, this recording will only be used for internal purposes only. So you're more than welcome to throw questions, comments in the chat, but just know that if it's during the presentation, that those could be potentially public. However, if you would like to wait until the second half of the recording, you might ask, why do we need these to be recorded? For us, it's helpful to go back and look at the questions being asked. Sometimes it is a little bit difficult to present material, also man the chat, also take notes. So it's just a piece of history that we're able to keep with us as far as those who are on this Cottage Food Home Bakery team to be able to look back at. So if you have any questions about that, you're more than welcome to post them in the chat. Again, we'll record the presentation, we'll stop recording, we'll start a new recording. I know that's a lot, but we just want folks to be able to speak as freely as they want to in the second half of the session. So Laura, with that, if you will start recording, that would be fantastic. Welcome to the Making Food at Home to Sell virtual Q&A series. Today, we will be focusing on what foods can be produced in the home. And there are several other Q&A sessions that will be taking place. I'll mention them in a few slides. This isn't to say that you cannot ask questions or have comments that are outside of this primary question. We just thought it would be nice to have a central theme to begin the conversation. I'd like to start by introducing myself as well as the members of this team. My name is Nicole. I'm an assistant professor in food safety field specialist at Ohio State. I'm with both Ohio State Extension and the Family and Consumer Sciences Division, as well as the Department of Food Science and Technology. Sort of my right hand woman here is Katie. You can see her photo in the middle there. She is an institute associate. This might be kind of funny, but at George Washington University. She was previously with me at Ohio State. And when she made that transfer to George Washington University, I really felt strongly about keeping her on this project with me because she's a great resource to have, because she was a previous inspector with the Ohio Department of Ag. She still currently resides in Ohio and knows the state very well. But I'm going to ask her to correct me at any point in time if I start talking about Ohio regulations incorrectly. But she is a great, great resource, and we're lucky to have her be a part of this. I would also like to acknowledge Emily. She is an assistant professor and is also an educator in Coshocton County. She is not able to be here today. She is on a well-deserved vacation, but she will be at some of the other virtual Q&As. And I would also like to recognize Laura. She's working here behind the scenes. Laura is our new healthy people specialist in family and consumer sciences, and she makes my job a lot easier of helping with some of the administrative aspects of some of the activities that we implement. So, Laura, again, thank you for doing all that you do. Just going to make sure that we don't have any technical difficulties with all the folks on the chat and so forth. We have put together these monthly Q&As knowing that folks might be busier in the summer, knowing that folks might be interested in home food production, more so from a holiday standpoint. Some things that I want to point out is that while the majority of these are towards the end of the month, that November 14th date, that last date listed, is a little bit earlier than the others because we want to make sure that we're giving people a little bit more prep time if you are interested in holiday food production. Now, we started out with five of these. We'll see what happens after that. We're going to take off in December, just knowing that it's a busy time for everyone. The university is closed for a lot of December. But if the interest is there, we will potentially pick back up in January if there are still a lot of questions and topics needing to be addressed in this home food production space. Before myself and Katie present any information to you, I wanted to go ahead and make a disclaimer that the information is specific to the state of Ohio. Now, if you're on this virtual Q&A and you're located outside of Ohio, we are not shooing you away in any way, shape or form. You are welcome to still hang out with us. But I wanted to provide that information right off the bat, because every state's what we would call cottage food or home food production rules are different. Some of them are very similar to each other, but some of them I would say are fairly different. So just want to make sure and throw that out there right off the bat. These types of foods that we'll be talking about today, you are not allowed to sell across state lines. So that's why this is really, really only specific to Ohio. Before we get into content, I also wanted to acknowledge that this activity today is part of a USDA grant. And the reason why I want to recognize that is because over the course of the next couple years, we plan to continue to do activities and to produce resources that support home-based food production. So producing food in a home kitchen with the intent to sell. And we're going to do that through a few in-person trainings. We plan to create more materials, both online and ones that are printable and can be disseminated in person. And sort of the largest task that we have, a part of this grant that we were graciously awarded, is that we are creating an online course. It's very much in the beginning stages, but we have done some work on it, where we hope to better support home food producers with many of the questions that they all have. And it's primarily going to focus on food safety and regulatory concepts. Maybe that sounds really, really dry, but there's a lot of different things that I would say fall under those topics. So things like labeling. Do you need to label? What needs to be included in a label? Things like what type of packaging am I allowed to use? What packaging is safe or might extend the shelf life of the products that I'm making? Questions will be addressed like the point of sale. Where can I sell these products? So all that is currently in the midst of being worked on. But that is our ultimate goal, is to create an online course for folks. And this really came out of me seeing a need. I say me, but this is a group effort. I have been at Ohio State for almost two years now. And when I came in, I didn't think that we had adequate resources for folks who wanted to make foods in their home and sell, maybe like other states do. So please know that we are acknowledging that there is a fairly large gap there and we're trying to fill that gap. So to our main question of the day, and I'll tell Katie to again, Katie, you feel free to jump in at any time. What foods can be produced in a home setting in Ohio? Think a lot of the challenges that folks face is not knowing where to start and not having an adequate understanding of what foods are or are not allowed to be produced in a home kitchen situation. And I do want to add that just because we are talking about, yes, this can be produced. No, this can't be produced. This doesn't mean that you can't do other things for your own personal consumption and the consumption of those in your home and your loved ones and friends and family. The purpose of this presentation is for making food with the intent to sell. Ohio has a two tiered system and I've broken these up. There are two kinds or categories of food that can be made in the home with the intent to sell and profit. One is a cottage food operation. That's what you can function as. And the other is a home bakery. So we just say cottage foods for short, might say home bakery or home bakery products. In this cottage food category, these are what we call non potentially hazardous foods. It's kind of a mouthful, but really what that means is that these food products, they are not likely to cause a foodborne illness or for bacteria to continue to grow rapidly if they are sitting at room temperature. So I'm sure that there's a lot of foods that you can think of right now that you can just leave on the counter and that's not a food safety issue. And you might also see this non potentially hazardous term displayed as non TCS. That comes up a lot, too. And I want to make sure that there's not confusion with that. So non TCS foods, again, that's interchangeable with non potentially hazardous foods. It means foods that don't need time or temperature control for safety. Just wanted to point that out in case you see some other resource that says TCS, non TCS. Now, these foods that are non potentially hazardous that fall in this cottage food production operation category, that does not require a license and it does not require an inspection. Does this mean that it's a free for all and there are absolutely no requirements to make and sell these foods? No, that's not the case. But with a cottage food, you don't need to apply and obtain a license and there's no one coming to your home, at least if there are no issues in inspecting it. Now, a home bakery is different because there are potentially hazardous baked goods that can be produced. So these foods would require refrigeration and different from the cottage foods production operation. You would need a license. And this does require typically a one time inspection of your home. Answering the questions, what foods can be made as cottage foods? So without that inspection, without that license, this right here is a pretty exhaustive list. And I will share some resources at the end of where you can find this information again. These I screenshotted and it is from Dr. Peggy Hall, who is our ag law specialist at Ohio State. She has created multiple law bulletins with a lot of really good information about home food production. So I can certainly send out those resources if you're interested. But this is a pretty exhaustive list. If it's not on this list, then you cannot make it as a cottage food. And that last bullet point at the end that says non potentially hazardous bakery items, that's talking about your cookies, your brownies, some cakes that don't need any type of refrigeration. And I know that this is a very text heavy slide. We can certainly go back to this slide when we're having discussion. Now for the home bakery products that are potentially hazardous, these are going to be your cheesecakes, cream pies, fry pies. You have to be careful where cottage foods you can have donuts, but they can't be filled. If you do want to make and sell filled donuts, that bumps you to the home bakery category. Raw dough is on here, egg noodles, cream cheese frosting, etc. And I know it can get confusing because we see again on the cottage food list, you could make fruit pies. Then here over on the home bakery list, we have pumpkin pies. And I'm more than happy to talk through that if that would be helpful. I did look through the questions that many of you sent with your registration. And I picked out some of the most frequently asked. And again, I'm more than happy to have a more in-depth conversation about these. These were just some very quick responses. Can I sell pickles? And I'm phrasing this questions of can I make and sell pickles from my home kitchen? And the answer to that is no, that these are acidified foods, which are not allowed to be made as home produced food. There are some other states that allow this, but Ohio is not one of them. Another question that comes up a lot, can I sell freeze dried foods or freeze dried candies? This is another no. And the Ohio Department of Ag, they understand that a lot of people are interested in doing this. The number of questions that we get just continuously goes up and up when it comes to freeze dried products. But no, you cannot make freeze dried food products or candies in your home and then sell them. And I do want to say this doesn't mean that you can't build a freeze dried food business. You can do that via another avenue, but you can't make these as cottage food or home bakery products. And then the question, can I sell canned foods? The vast majority of canned foods are not allowed to be home produced with the intent to sell. However, there are a few exceptions to this rule. There are some primarily fruit, jams, jellies, chutneys and butters that are allowed. And I very much would consider those canned food items. And so that's why I have the yield sign. These answers that are no or it depends. This isn't a hard stop if these are foods that you are interested in making and selling. But it is a hey, slow down. Some of these food items do not fall into the category of cottage food and home bakery. This is a very valid question that comes up time and time again. Why are only some foods allowed to be home produced? And I think that this is a little bit of say it's not a straightforward answer. There's a lot of people who would say that they are solely based on food safety risk. I would kindly agree to disagree. I do think that a lot of why these lists were created is based on food safety. As you noticed, again, the cottage food versus home bakery. We're talking non potentially hazardous foods and then there's potentially hazardous foods. Those are definitely directly related to food safety. If you are going to be producing these higher risk food products that require refrigeration under that home bakery category, then you are going to need a license and you are going to need to be inspected. There are additional steps in order to be able to do that. However, I believe that if it was solely based on food safety across the U.S., then we would all be selling this and not selling the same food products state to state. Ultimately, this decision is made because states have the right to determine what foods fall in these categories. I'm just the communicator here. So don't get too frustrated with me if something you want to make is on the list. I'm not the decision maker here. But also we have to recognize that regulators and educators also need the capacity to communicate regulations and also to enforce regulations, too. So if all of a sudden the Ohio Department of Ag says, which I don't necessarily think that this will be the case, but if they all of a sudden came out and said freeze dried foods are allowed, then I as an educator would expect that we would have adequate resources ready for people to make freeze dried food safely. And at this time, I don't think that we do, at least in the state of Ohio. So just as an example is what I mean by capacity. There were also a lot of questions in the registration about where to find specific types of information. This is just a short list when it comes to what the regulations actually are. The Ohio Department of Ag, I refer to them as ODA. That's their acronym. They have a lot of great resources on their website. They definitely have a cottage food info sheet that talks in depth about the labeling requirements of those foods. I'm not exactly sure if they have that for home bakery products. Maybe Katie can chime in. Yes, they do. So they have one distinctly for cottage foods and then one for bakeries. Perfect. They also have a lot of Q&As on their website. So frequently asked questions that they address. And from Dr. Peggy Hall, again, she's our ag law specialist at Ohio State. Her perspective is a little bit different, more so from that law rule regulation standpoint and sometimes business perspective. She has created law bulletins that are posted publicly, and I find those to be very helpful. And sometimes they're a little bit more user friendly from my perspective of ODA. They're your regulators versus Peggy, who is also an extension and an educator, too, by training. So I think that they're a little bit more user friendly than maybe what you would find on the ODA website. Presenting the same information just in a little bit of a different way. And then Emily, who I mentioned when introducing the team members, she created what is titled as a Food Business Central course. This course is actually live. You can enroll in it at any time. It costs twenty five dollars, all online, self-paced. And I have a little photo of it here on the slide. This is a fairly new course. I think it's only been up and running for a few months now. It was a team of us. It was Emily, myself, Dr. Peggy Hall and also our beef specialist, Garth, who put together about ten modules. And I would recommend this course if you are in the beginning stages of creating a food business. And this is just a food business in general. Or if you are thinking about starting a food business and it's primarily surrounding homemade or farm raised products. And again, if you have an up and running business that's thriving right now, I don't recommend this course for you. But the course does do a great job of providing more so of an overview, not just home based foods, but the larger scope of food businesses that could potentially be created in Ohio. And also what those regulations look like, because a lot of times we want to catch people before they start investing their time, money, resources, etc. To say, hey, if you do want to produce a canned food, I will say canned foods is a module that I did for the Food Business Central course. If you do want to make and sell canned foods, here's what you have to do in the state of Ohio. You can't make them at home. You're going to have to get a canning license. It's going to be in more so of that manufacturing environment. However, here are some things that other people have done to make it a little bit more simplistic. You don't have to have a cannery. You might be able to utilize someone else's cannery and so forth. So that information is a little bit out of the scope of today's conversation, but wanted to throw that out there in case that might be a good resource for folks. And then in the future, again, we're probably still very far away from the launch of this, but want to let you know that we are working on a course solely for cottage food and home bakery producers. So those folks that are making food in their home. What are some of the things that I need to be thinking about? How do I make sure that these foods are safe? And covering some topics that I really haven't seen any resources for, such as what happens if I make one of these products in my home and an ingredient. So let's say I'll use flour as an example is recalled. Do I need to recall my food products? How do I know who has obtained my food products? So some of those are some of the questions and concepts we're hoping to address in that course. And we always want to help folks. You know, if you want to remain in a certain space, thumbs up for me. If you want to move on to that next level, I may not be the best person to assist, but I want to help get you there. So I do think that the cottage food and home bakery course will be beneficial to get folks in the habit of doing some things that will serve you well later on. So some of these might sound very simplistic, but they're absolutely essential. Things like record keeping, where you have specific identifiers, specific numbers for maybe different lots or groups of products that you've created that you know what date certain products were created on. Because in the food safety world, we say that if you didn't write it down, you didn't do it. Those records might come in handy later on down the road, especially if there's an issue. And while records record keeping isn't always required by these entities, if you move on to the next stage of building your business, it might be in those circumstances. So I'm going to stop here. And I'm going to backtrack to this slide just so we have it up here because it's so text heavy in case folks have questions.