Gift biz unwrapped episode 248 I just wanted to share my

story and what worked for me with everybody else.

Simple as that.

Attention gifters,

bakers, crafters,

and makers pursuing your dream can be fun.

Whether you have an established business or looking to start one

now you are in the right place.

This is gift to biz unwrapped,

helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.

Join us for an episode packed full of invaluable guidance,

resources, and the support you need to grow your gift biz.

Here is your host gift biz gal,

Sue moon Heights.

Hi there,

it's Sue Ann.

A brand new decade holding so much potential.

It's a fresh start.

You know how it is when you get a new car,

it has that special smell and everything is shiny and Dustin

dent free.

Imagine that you've just driven your new car off the lot

and now with this new year,

where is the road going to take you?

If you were all caught up in festivities last week and

didn't catch my episode with Teresa on the Enneagram,

I encourage you to go back and take a listen to

that one.

I've already heard from a number of you about how insightful

it was.

car theme going,

a nice roadway into the new year.

One of the best things about having your own business is

that you get to call all the shots.

Here's a past guest spotlight that's a great example of molding

your business into your life and not letting your business take

over your life.

I'd like to reacquaint you with Angela Lee of bright Smith

studio. She designed high end custom jewelry and was on the

following year she shifted her business growth to neutral for a

really good reason.

Just before her 42nd birthday,

Angela had a baby being self employed,

allowed her flexibility in her maternity leave to be able to

stay home for her baby's first year.

Since this past July,

she's back up to full capacity with some changes.

You see,

she recognized a market shift with customers seeking lower priced alternatives

of her upscale designs,

sticking with precious metals.

She ventured into lower carat gold and added some smaller pieces

which opened up lower cost product options.

How's it worked?

You might ask.

Angela's are up 75% and her revenue has increased by almost

50% a good strategic move,

I'd say,

and that's not all.

Now she's adding onto her home more room for a baby

and a large studio for Angela and catch this.

Her business is almost completely funding this new renovation.

Hm. And some people say you can't make money turning your

creative skill into a business.

I beg to differ.

If you're interested in hearing more about Angela's story,

you can do that over@giftbizonrapt.com

forward slash bright Smith.

Now my guest this week is for all of you bakers

out there.

We're diving deep into cottage food laws with an expert on

the topic.

Many bakers and sweet makers start from their home kitchen.

They make treats to give away as gifts and before you

know it,

people are placing orders and in many businesses starting almost by

accident. Does this sound like you?

If so,

are you wondering if you can legally sell items made from

your home?

Are you confused about what's involved with labeling and copywriting and

selling? Grab a pen and paper.

Got you covered Today.

It is my pleasure to introduce you to Denae Davis of

food preneur Institute.

Denae created the food printer Institute as an online resource center

to educate,

train and support cottage food operators and home food processors.

She describes herself as a food addict,

literally and figuratively,

a home-based Baker and small business advocate.

She's a passionate food crafter,

creating unique products that can be taken to market a pie,

Baker Xtrordinair and the mastermind behind the Charlotte pie authority,

which is a custom pie shop in Charlotte,

North Carolina.

Today is also the host of stories of impact,

a podcast supporting home-based bakers and food crafters across the U

S welcome to the gift biz on wrapped podcast.

Denae. Thank you,

Sue. I'm so happy to be here and provide some great

information. I am so excited too because there's lots of questions

around the food industry.

You know,

it has another layer on top of being a maker.

When you have a consumable product,

there's a little bit more you need to consider.

So I'm really excited to dive into all of that.

But before we do,

you know,

I have to ask you my now famous candle question just

to give us a little bit more of an understanding of

what you're all about in a creative way.

So if you were to describe yourself as a motivational candle

or through a candle,

what color and quote would be on your candle?

Well, my color would be purple and that's because the color

purple is also the color for a lot of things,

but wisdom.

And as an educator I am all about learning.

And my motivational quote would be of course,

learn before you leap.

Ooh, okay.

And why do you say that?

Because very often we get excited with the process and the

product and the whole just making things and they're looking pretty

and people love us and they're clapping and going,

Oh this is wonderful,

but we don't take enough time to learn about what we're

doing, why we're doing it and sometimes how we're doing it.

That's really interesting because a lot of times people will say

at some point you just have to stop getting information and

start doing cause the doing is the scarier part,

right? Actually taking the action and doing it because you can

get so involved in thinking you're taking action when you're really

just learning,

but I think as it applies to your industry,

the consumable industry,

that's really important.

You do need to back it up a little bit and

make sure you've gotten the information before you start taking action.

Absolutely. We'll,

the food industry has been out here for a long time

and folks need to understand,

even though they are small batch food producers,

the big batch food producers started somewhere and there's a lot

to learn.

And so even though you're producing your product,

you can still learn.

It's lifelong learning.

And that's,

I suppose that's what I'm trying to share.

I agree with you on that lifelong learning for sure.

And that's how we progress too,

right? You start somewhere,

you learn more,

you get better,

you learn more,

you grow bigger,

you have new dreams and new ideas of where you want

to take some things.

So you need to learn more about that.

Absolutely. We can't have all the knowledge right in the beginning

or we'd probably never start thinking so.

But that leads into my next question,

Denae which is,

how did you get started with all this?

Oh my goodness.

Wow. Well,

I always loved to bake and I really learned from my

mom. She made amazing Danish pastry and cakes and candies,

and I was in the United States Navy.

I'm not going to go all the way back,

but after serving in the us Navy,

I got out and I'm a gifted Baker,

just, it's natural.

Let me just say that and I thought I could be

an assistant pastry chef.

So I was bold enough to go to a hotel and

put in for a job and I got it.

Sue the pastry chef there asked me if I could make

a quiche and I said,

of course.

And I did.

I put on a jacket.

He took me over,

I washed my hands,

I made the quiche.

I sat down while it baked and he took it out

of the oven and he said,

you're hired.

Wow. So no formal training,

right? No,

none at all.

Which is a really good point for everybody to take note

of because that could be a barrier for people if they

want to do something in any industry really is,

well, I've never really been taught how to do this professionally.

Even though for you,

you were being trained your whole life from your mom?

Yes, from my mom,

my grandmother,

my aunts.

But one of the big kickers,

what really helped me is I lived in Japan for three

years and I never came home to the States,

so my husband was nice enough to buy me all these

cookbooks and he bought me one in particular,

creative cooking,

and I went through the entire,

I guess it was probably about almost 500 pages.

Oh my gosh.

Yes. I cooked and baked everything.

That's how I taught myself.

This was a hobby for you then at this point,

you enjoyed it.

You were learning because it was all fun,

not with the intent of ever doing anything professional with it

at the time.

Correct. Yeah,

so I think this is so great just right off the

bat because I think a lot of people who are listening

to now are in the same place.

They've done this for ever just as a hobby,

but I think we all forget how much we pick up

along the way.

Yeah. It might not be a formal class,

but you're learning just as you're describing.

And before we go any further,

I just have to say thank you very much for your

service to our country.

Thank you.

Okay, so you were learning with this book in Japan.

Then what happened?

And then I returned to the States and I got out

of the Navy.

We got out of the Navy and I'm wanting to get

a job.

I found Sue that I loved baking more than cooking.

They're very different from each other for sure.

Oh yes.

Baking is a science.

Yeah. And you know you can fix things up when you

cook, but when you bake,

well that's a different ball game altogether.

So I put in for this job and I got the

job and I was doing really,

really well.

And I had a small child,

a little girl,

my baby girl,

and I was working the midnight,

the graveyard shift.

And I said,

you know what?

This is not going to work.

And so I decided to step out on faith and I

started catering and that's where my name came up today.

My catering company was called cooking with Denae.

No, this was before the internet.

This was way back in the late eighties and I operated

a small catering business out of a VFW hall in downtown

Detroit, and I did that for several years.

I got into recipe development and food styling,

and it's a long story.

I have a rich history,

but I didn't know where my gifts would take me and

if I tell folks,

just hang in there because you never know what opportunities are

going to come.

Right. Okay.

To these can be really quick answers,

but I think it would be interesting to hear when you

started your catering business,

how did you get the word out that your services existed?

Because as you said,

there was no internet yet.

No, but what there was was networking and in Detroit,

Michigan, there was a lady FICA,

new Stevens.

She was sort of the lady about town.

She knew everything that was going on and I knew I

had to connect with her.

So she would have a Friday event,

a Friday networking at a hotel in downtown Detroit.

And one day I just walked in with a cake.

Ooh, that got everyone's attention.

I'm sure.

I introduced myself,

put down the cake and I said,

I need to be a part of this organization,

this group.

I said,

because I need to get word out about my catering business

and I need some help.

And that's what I did.

And it obviously worked.

It did work along with one other thing that I did.

So I wrote the Detroit free press a letter and I

told them my story and I said,

I need a break.

Can you guys give me some exposure?

I don't care how small it can be a blurp.

And I got a full page story from them.

Wow. The editor said he was so impressed with my letter

that they sent cameras out and everything.

Oh my gosh.

How exciting.

Yes. And that started me.

That was it.

That was all I needed.

Those two things.

Well, you asked for help in both places.

You asked for help.

Yes, I boldly went where no one else would go.

I think that's awesome.

I mean,

you were showing vulnerability,

right? Because you're not coming saying I'm the established person and

you having all the credibility and all of that.

You knew you had the skill,

but you needed to help with getting the word out and

so you asked for it.

Yes, I did.

How novel?

Who knew?

Who knew?

Okay, so that was my first quick question.

My second quick question is bone Appetit,

like seriously?

How did that happen?

Well, in bone Appetit,

there was an area called too busy to cook and you

would talk about recipes that if you were so busy,

you would have a recipe that you could prepare in just

30 minutes or 45 minutes.

And so I wrote them because you could write them with

a recipe.

And again,

I wrote this long,

wonderful story about two recipes and lo and behold,

about probably a month later,

I got a letter that said my recipes were going to

be included and they wanted to write a little blurb,

a little story,

who I was,

and as they say,

the rest is history.

Wow. I love that you didn't wait to get discovered.

You took it upon yourself to show yourself to everybody and

that's when things happened in both cases here.

Absolutely. And from the bone Appetit right up in the magazine,

I was contacted by them twice for recipes for their bone

Appetit, end of the year cookbooks,

and I never saw that coming.

Right. But have you not done the first step?

The next step would've never come.

Exactly. So it just builds on itself once you get started

like that.

Okay, so food for thought gift biz listeners,

don't wait.

How can you put either an ask out there,

be vulnerable and put an ask out there or offer up

knowledge that you already have somewhere where you could get visibility

and amazing things might happen.

Absolutely. I have been using that process of writing and sharing

my story forever.

That's what I do.

And when I started the Charlotte pie authority,

just so your listeners will know,

there was no pie shop in Charlotte outside of Charlotte,

guess there was one.

But I wrote the observer,

which is the local paper in Charlotte,

and I wrote a lifestyle journalist and he read my article

and lo and behold,

the farmer's market where I was selling,

he came out one day complete with the camera crew and

I didn't even know he was coming.

He said,

I wanted to catch you off guard and just see your

pies and talk to you.

That's so exciting.

It was,

it was shocking for me.

I'm still like,

are you serious dude?

You could have at least,

I mean,

I could have done my hair,

you know,

I could have,

but you don't know how these,

as I said,

these opportunities are going to come about.

You don't know when they're going to come about.

So my thing is try everything,

but don't,

you're right.

Don't be afraid to be vulnerable.

And that's never been my,

you know,

I don't care.

I want to get the word out.

I do.

I say this to a lot of folks that I work

with the,

I teach classes and to my students you have to be

a social butterfly.

You just do.

Yeah. And you know,

we see this now online a lot that the less formatted

and staged content is number one.

What people really believe in more because it's more authentic,

it's more the true person,

but they also people like those better than you know the,

if you would have had your hair all done and you

knew they were coming,

you would have affected your scene differently.

I mean it's just natural to do that.

So it gives us all,

I think,

Liberty to just be who we are and get that publicity

however we can.

The other thing I think that's really important to remember too

is all these news outlets,

whether it's radio,

television, print,

anything are always looking for stories.

They're in need of the content and I think we forget

that going to them helps them.

We don't have to wait and have them reach out to

us, we can go to them.

And that's valuable to them because that's one less story they

have to go find.

So it does work both ways.

You get visibility,

they get stories,

especially local stories.

Absolutely. All right,

so let's move on now to food preneur.

So where did that come on to the scene?

Oh my goodness.

about, it's called the cottage food law or cottage food rule.

That's a generic name,

so people understand it's not necessarily cottage food,

it's just kind of what we call it.

So everybody knows what we're talking about.

Nothing more than preparing non-hazardous foods from your home kitchen for

sale to the consumer.

Simple as that.

And every state is different here in North Carolina.

It's the home food processor program.

And I learned about that when I relocated to North Carolina.

I was living in Kerry and I said,

wow, I could sell baked goods.

Oh man.

Wow. That would just blew my mind.

So I started to learn everything I needed to learn.

And then I started to sell my pies because I am

a PI.

Extraordinary. But I wrote everything,

the educator in me,

and I've been in education now for 34 years.

The educator in me said,

document everything and share this with other people.

And that's exactly what I did.

And my first website was home-based baking.com.

And that website,

uh, was seen by a publisher in Connecticut.

A young woman contacted me and said,

you know what?

I want to turn your website into a book.

And the rest is history.

It took me a year and one month to write the

book. I had editors,

I had people working with me.

I was not doing it alone.

And it was not my goal to write a book with

the website.

I just wanted to share my story and what worked for

me with everybody else.

Simple as that.

Right? So upon landing the book and writing the book,

I decided I need to do something more.

And so I want to turn this into an Institute,

a school,

and I know my family and members were like,

you've gotta be joking.

Nobody's going to go to your school,

nobody cares.

And I said,

you know what,

no, I'm going to do this because I'm an educator and

this would be the next natural step.

And from that I just decided,

okay, I'm going to build an Institute and it's going to

be called food foreigner Institute and we are going to educate

people about a very tiny niche,

niche market,

cottage foods and home food processing.

And that's where it came from.

And that's where you've stayed,

you've kept the bracket around that cottage food operators and home

food processors.

Yes. Just so you'll know.

that had some type of cottage food law or rule.

Today there are 49 States.

New Jersey is the last holdout and I am determined in

2020 that New Jersey will have a cottage food law.

Okay, well there you go.

You've put that out there.

Now it has to happen.

It does.

That actually worked really well in your favor because you were

at that point when you started food preneur Institute,

you were talking about the whole world.

And you weren't just talking about North Carolina.

Correct. Not the whole world.

The whole country.

Right. So you only had to deal with nine,

which was kind of nice then because as more came on,

you could add them in.

You didn't have to do 49 at one time.

It was a kind of got to grow with you.

Absolutely. And in fact one of the legislators in South Carolina

contacted me because he wanted to know about the North Carolina

cottage food rule.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah. So I told him all the things that would make

their state great.

Well he didn't use the mall,

but you know,

you can only hope,

Right? Well you can only provide it and you know,

just like everything we do,

right, we can share information,

but it's up to that person to take action like we

were talking about in the beginning.

Absolutely. All right,

so let's start addressing someone who's listening right now who is

baking from the kitchen just for fun.

So kind of where you were Denae way in the beginning

it was a hobby you were learning and all of a

sudden now this idea is starting to form like maybe just

maybe this could be a business.

How does someone start the right way with this particularly because

it's a food product,

what do you do?

That's a great question.

The first thing you need to do is to make sure

that the product that you want to produce can be produced

in the home kitchen.

Everything cannot.

And so I have a map Fu preneur Institute and there

are lots of people who have information out there,

but my map takes you to your state cottage food law.

So you go to the map and you go straight to

it and read it,

go through it with a fine tooth comb.

That's where you start.

If your product is listed,

then you know that you can produce your product from home

and then it's a matter of finding out if you need

to have your kitchen inspected.

Some States don't require that from you,

and then whatever those rules or regulations are,

make sure you understand them.

Is it overwhelming?

Well, let me put it this way.

Anytime a state is responsible for providing information,

of course it's overwhelming,

But is it understandable?

I mean,

I just,

I don't want anyone at this point to be like,

Oh my gosh,

that's way too much for me.

I'm done.

No, absolutely not.

And there are thousands and thousands of cottage food operators.

If you don't understand something,

you can either contact your state or you can just mosey

over to food.

Panera Institute,

I've been doing this long enough,

tell you exactly what you need to do.

Oh my gosh,

such a sigh of relief.

You are now our expert of all things food.

Let's just go with that baking or everything.

It's not just speaking.

There are States that allow you to cook food as far

as the baking,

making jams and jellies,

candies, dried mixes.

If you have a soup mix that you've put together and

it's the dried vegetables,

dried seasonings,

and you'd like to sell that,

that's possible.

The list is endless.

But the list is dependent on where you live,

what state you live in.

Okay. And so if someone comes over to your site and

clicks on their state,

there's actually a list of approved products that they could produce.

Yes. So it's that black and white for people.

It is the state's actual cottage food program.

And so you're going to click it and you're going to

start reading and they're going to say welcome to,

you know,

and then they'll give you the list of foods that you

can make.

They'll give you the list of foods you cannot.

And if there's a food that you cannot produce,

you need to contact them.

Because very often they may even add a product.

Oh. So you don't have to be broken hearted.

If you don't see your product on there right away,

there's some action you can take to possibly get it included.

There is of the foods that you normally can't make are

perishable, and those are foods that have any type of dairy

or cream cheese.

Any product that after you make it,

it immediately has to go into refrigerator.

That's not going to be a cottage food product,

Like all those warnings that you see in the magazines when

you're thinking of like 4th of July foods,

make sure to cover it or refrigerated and bring it out

right before you serve it,

that type of thing.

Correct. Okay,

so that's the first thing you do when you're getting started.

I'm going to let you carry on.

I have a question,

but you might cover it.

So I'm gonna let you carry on.

What do you do then?

Yes, it's possible.

Increase your sales without adding a single customer.

How you ask by offering personalization with your products.

Wrap a cake box with a ribbon saying happy 30th birthday,

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party favors for an extra meaningful touch.

Where else can you get customization with a creatively spelled name

or find packaging that includes a saying whose meaning is known

to a select to not only are customers willing to pay

for these special touches,

they'll tell their friends and word will spread about your company

and products.

You can create personalized ribbons and labels in seconds.

Make just one or thousands without waiting weeks or having to

spend money to order yards and yards.

Print words in any language or font,

add logos,

images, even photos.

Perfect for branding or adding ingredient and flavor labels to,

for more information,

go to the ribbon,

print company.com.

Okay, so you found your food.

It's on the list.

Yay. Celebration.

Now what?

Now you're going to find out if there's any type of

home kitchen inspection.

If there is,

there will be a process,

an application.

You'll have to contact someone,

go through the process.

You only do it once and once you're approved to produce

your product,

then that's it.

They're going to say,

okay, you can start selling And do you find out if

you need the inspection or where to get that inspection?

Also in the location where you find your food laws by

state, Yes you do.

Everything is right there complete with the applications and any information

that you need to fill out.

Most of the States even allow you to fill the information

out online,

so it goes immediately to the cottage food operator,

whoever that representative is.

Okay. All right,

so I'm two questions here.

I hope I'm going to remember both of them.

You said you only have to do the kitchen inspection one

time. You don't have to go back and get updates like

you do when you have a brick and mortar shop For

most States and now there are one or two exceptions and

I'm not going to get into that,

but for most States if you have to be inspected and

not all States require that,

but if you have to be inspected,

you are initially your first inspection is just to find out

what your kitchen looks like and what you're going to be

preparing. No one comes back to your kitchen for any reason

unless there is a complaint.

Now, if there is a complaint,

then the cottage food representatives will come back.

Yes. Okay.

And it probably goes without saying,

but if you move then you need to be reinspected.

Exactly. Yes you do.

Okay. What if you add new products?

That's usually done by email and if you're inspected,

even if you're not,

you're going to have a representative.

There's someone that you can contact to get information about your

cottage food program law rule.

You would contact them and say,

I am going to be adding the following products to my

menu, and then they'll tell you what they need.

Usually the name of the product and a list of the

ingredients. I did not say the recipe.

No, no,

no, no.

We're going to talk about that.

Okay. Yeah,

for sure.

We'll talk about that.

Okay. If you make English toffee,

do you have to list all your flavors of English toffee

or is it just a general category?

How detailed do you have to get with your product listing?

You do have to get that detailed.

You have to list every detail for each flavor that you

sell. Yes.

Okay, so good thing to know.

I'm not in the food industry specifically,

but good to know.

So anytime you add a product you just have to make

the contact,

add it to the list.

If it's just a variation of a current product,

that should be like a no brainer.

It's just one more thing you do real quick and it's

no approvals or anything.

It's just it has to be listed there.

Absolutely. However,

I want everyone to understand they're still rules and regulations and

when it comes to listing ingredients on your labels,

this is for the safety of the consumer.

It is not about you at all and so that is

what your kind of true agency is trying to just remind

you that there are people out there that have all sorts

of allergies against this,

that and the other,

and there are specific requirements that you have to follow.

So that's why if you do a tophi with pecans and

a tophi with walnuts,

yes, you have to have one label that says pecans and

a completely different label that says walnuts.

Right? Yeah.

Okay. In terms of what that label should look like,

where does someone go if they're just starting in,

they're not sure about that.

Well, your state cottage food law should have a sample label

for that state.

Perfect. They should have that on their website so you can

look at it now.

If they don't,

then you're going to mosey right on over to food manure

institute.com you're going to hit contact and you're going to say,

Hey, they don't have a label.

Can you send me what I need and I will send

it to you.

Love that.

Okay. What do you do if you include in your product

something that's a branded product,

like let's do one of my favorite Reese's pieces.

What is my responsibility?

Then what can I and can't I do if I have

that product included in something that I make?

Okay, well no brands on your labels Use it in your

product though,

right? Yes,

absolutely. Okay,

but then you say no brand on the labels in terms

of the name of the product or the ingredients or,

I'm going to let you talk about it.

What do you do?

No name as far as the brand.

So if I'm using Reeses pieces in my chocolate chip cookies

and I'm not using chocolate chips,

I'm using that.

I'm just going to say chocolate pieces and then in parentheses

I'm going to turn that Reese's species a package over and

under ingredients.

There's a list of everything that's in it,

in those pieces,

you're going to list that in parentheses,

all of it.

Okay, so you never Actually say Reeses at all.

You say chocolate pieces and then actually on the receipt pieces

bag that they have,

the ingredients,

you turn it over and then you list everything that's on

there. Exactly,

yes. Got it.

Interesting. And not hard.

Not hard at all.

It's not.

It just can be a lot to type,

but understand for that particular product that you're making,

once you get that label complete,

as long as you don't add anything to the recipe,

it's done.

Now, if you decided to add also pecans,

then you do the same label,

but you would add pecans.

Oh, okay.

Okay. Yeah.

Okay. Easy.

Got it.

So next question on the label,

they'll have how many calories?

Like you know,

all those extra things,

how does someone figure out what that is for their product?

Well, there are a number of tools that I can recommend

that are free,

and there are some that may have a small fee that

you'll, a monthly fee that you'll have to pay.

But right now nutritional information is not necessary on food products

for cottage food operators unless you're making a claim,

What does that mean?

Making a claim?

If you are saying that my cheesy crackers are low sodium

or low fat,

you're making a claim and if that's the case,

then you need to put the nutritional label on them to

prove that.

All right,

so here's a very positive,

I guess just for the business owner,

a really positive point that you don't have to take that

extra step unless you're making a claim like you're saying,

but that changes then when someone goes brick and mortar,

right then because they have their product on display in a

shop or if someone,

let me ask you this,

if someone is a cottage food maker,

I guess I would say,

and they want to sell wholesale to a local shop,

then what changes with what we've talked about?

Then When you get into commercial sales,

the rules and regulations are going to be different.

Even if you're still making and selling it to a shop

owner to then sell in that shop.

Yes, because the rules and regulations around selling wholesale to a

commercial vendor are different.

And that's why I said gotta know who you're selling to.

And as you sell to different vendors,

it's going to change.

Now let me say this,

as a cottage food operator,

you may or may not be able to sell to a

coffee shop or to a candy shop or wholesale to another

vendor. If your cottage food law says you cannot do that,

then you can't.

Right. And it will tell you who you can and can't

sell to.

Yeah. It's really interesting.

I was looking in preparation for this.

I was looking up Illinois because I'm in the Chicago area

and it shows that I can sell at farmer's markets but

not at craft shows.

So it does get really specific and very clear and I

don't want anyone to feel like that's over limiting either because

there are still lots of opportunities for you.

You just have to know what parameters you have to work

within. Absolutely.

And in Illinois,

the cottage food law is different for every County.

Oh, thank you.

Denae and how will somebody in a state know if they're

County specific?

Well, they would have to contact the state.

It's a state law and then the state says to the

County, would you like to do this?

And some counties say,

Hey yeah,

we'll do it.

But you know,

reluctantly. So you wouldn't go to the state first and it

will either be your state health department or department of agriculture.

There are different departments.

You'll have to find out which one oversees the cottage food

program in your state and go to the map.

And then once you call or email them,

they'll tell you Illinois,

there are a few States that have County cottage food laws.

California has County cottage food laws.

So every County in California is different.

Okay. So if I went to the state on your map,

will it also say find out additional requirements by County?

Will it tell me that there or is this a two

step process?

I need to find out what the cottage food laws are

by my state and then I still need to do that

second check with the County.

Yeah, it's a two step process.

You're going to contact the state and they will let you

know if it's the same for the entire state.

No counties or no,

you need to contact your individual County health department,

department of agriculture or whatever.

Okay, perfect.

Okay. Two steps there.

Okay, so great to know.

We've talked about the ingredients lists and I know already food

preneur Institute is like the place to go.

If you have any questions on anything or there's questions that

I'm not thinking of to ask,

you guys knew where to go.

Just pick up and find Denae and she's going to tell

you. Okay,

so let's keep going.

Not business development specifically,

but in the cottage food industry.

Once you know your food laws,

you had the inspection.

Dawn, is there anything else you need to do before you

register your business for this?

Like all the other business development stuff,

is there anything else specific for the industry?

Actually there is not,

other than looking,

making sure that the product you produce is something that's needed

in the marketplace.

Okay, perfect.

I want to then talk a little bit about the recipe.

You know,

you alluded to it earlier and I'm going to let you

take it away.

What does the recipe mean to your business?

Well, your recipe is everything,

but first,

let me put this out there because there's a lot of

question about copyrights and recipes and a recipe can not be

copywritten. What can be copywritten is the process,

the procedure,

and that's under what to do.

Blend three eggs with flour,

sugar, that is the process that can be copywritten,

but the actual ingredients,

the list cannot.

And so I always say that your recipe is like the

heartbeat of the business.

And if the recipe gets out,

that's just something that you really have to protect and value

and understand how important that is because that's yours.

That's the one thing that you own that makes you different

from anybody else.

And it could be just the way the order in which

the ingredients are done.

Just like you're saying with whatever the procedure or the process

is. How do you keep that safe?

Don't share it.

So let's say you copyright it,

but what if you have people who are now helping you

cause you're getting bigger and so they're coming into your kitchen

to help And then you would make sure that you contact

an attorney to draft a nondisclosure and all you can do

is ask them to sign it and hopefully they won't share

anything. But I can tell you right now,

there are no guarantees.

So I've talked to other people in the industry who protect

themselves with things like this by their portion of it.

Let's say it's a family business initially and now they're bringing

in employees to help in a home kitchen again.

Okay, so we're not talking about if you are having the

product made elsewhere,

we're only talking home kitchens right now.

They will,

let's say it's flour and sugar and salt and some other

fancy ingredient or a secret ingredient or whatever it is.

They'll make all that up beforehand and then have employees take

it from a certain point so that that portion is still

protected even though it's part of the process.

Absolutely. There's a restaurant in Nashville that has a hot chicken

recipe and they take the sauce part of the sauce and

then the employees get to blend the rest of the ingredients

with that special sauce.

Absolutely. You can do that.

Yeah. It's a way to really protect herself.

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah. I know a restaurant in New Jersey,

do you know Steven cookies?

No, I don't.

Oh my gosh.

It's one of those places where you can barely ever even

get a reservation.

Like I'm hoping to get into the fancy part of the

restaurant next year when I go out to the Jersey shore

and we have to make the reservation soon.

But they have this blueberry pie that is,

Oh my gosh,

to die for.

And I mean like a blueberry pie like I have never

ever seen before.

The thing that's so interesting about it is when I go

out there and you know I have a good girlfriend who

lives on the Jersey shore,

which is why I'm there,

how I know about it on and on,

but I'll be out with some of her friends who are

now my friends since I said I go down there and

they'll be like,

Oh yeah,

I know the recipe.

I deconstructed it.

I know how to make it too and I don't know.

I mean I don't know that they really do because nobody

knows the process part.

I mean it might be a little bit similar,

but nobody knows for sure and these pies sell out literally

in like maybe an hour when they're made.

It's crazy.

Let's see.

I was into recipe development and so if you're really good

at it and you taste it and it's food,

it's not an,

even though it's a science for some people it's not going

to be challenging to deconstruct it.

There was an amazing chocolate chip shortbread cookie from a bakery

And it is exactly the same cookie.

Hmm. It is not impossible.

That's why I say what makes your product your product?

It's not the product.

It's you Love it.

Oh you're speaking my language today.

Okay, so you're making peach pies and someone else makes peach

pies. No one can talk about that peach pie.

No one can make it.

Describe it and sell it like you can.

That's right.

It's all the other things you bring.

Well, your product has to be awesome first,

right? Cause there's so much competition and it's not just for

consumable products.

That's for every product,

right. People make jewelry and pottery and candles and everything,

but it's the other things you bring in.

You add on top.

Exactly. And your story,

just like you were talking to Nate about how you know

you had that,

the book and you learned how to cook and it was

with your grandmother and your mom and the Danish pastries.

It's the whole backstory to that.

You add onto it,

Your story is your number one marketing tool,

particularly today.

The first thing people want to know is how did you

get into this?

Wow, how did you make that?

And that's the time when you need to have your story

down and you let them have it because it first begins,

yes, a great product,

but it also begins with you.

And I think people forget or don't understand how important that

is because they want to just talk about the product and

not add their personality on top where really that's where you

get an advantage.

And it also gives someone something else to talk about,

not just,

Oh, the peach pie is so great,

but Oh her peach pie is delicious.

But do you know she also competes in with horses or

like whatever the extra things are,

right. It gives someone something else unique to talk about in

conjunction with your company and your when you share your story.

Absolutely. Okay,

so when you have your recipe,

protect your recipe to the extent that you can.

If you have employees do noncompete,

let's circle into what mistakes have you seen people make that

we should be aware of and make sure to avoid.

Oh my goodness.

Wow. That's a big one.

That's a great question.

Will we be adding on an hour?

Our talk here?

Probably. Oh my goodness.

Just a couple of top ones.

Okay. A couple of the top error.

Test your product.

Okay. And test your product because you're dealing with food.

Test your product with people you don't know.

Oh yeah,

yeah. Your family members and friends love you and they will

always love you.

They will love you through everything,

but the consumer of the general public will not.

And so if you really want to know whether or not

your product is successful,

it's delicious.

It's going to sell.

You need to,

and I'm in North Carolina,

so we are notorious for popups and I tell a lot

of cottage food operators go to your church,

even though some of those people know you,

some of them don't.

But go to a church,

a coffee shop somewhere public,

and ask if you can have a popup and test your

recipe. I mean,

really test it and see what people are saying and give

them an opportunity to share.

And of course grow tough skin because everybody's not gonna love

what you have.

And that's okay.

That's right.

If you hear one or two people being critical of your

product, that doesn't mean you stop.

Absolutely. And the second thing is stop trying to make everything

under the sun for cottage food operators.

I always say,

okay, look in your pantry right now at the food that

your family eats and attach a dollar Mark to it,

to everything in the pantry.

How much money do you have?

Now you're getting ready to go into business.

You have 15 items listed.

You have to buy all the ingredients for that.

You buy it,

you put it on another shelf or series of shelves in

your pantry,

attach a dollar price to it.

Remember, if you've got 15 different items,

you've got a lot of money.

They're sitting on the pantry shelf.

Do you really want to do that?

So you've got to think about what you're going to prepare.

I always say start with your very best.

Hmm. Start with your very best,

become known for that and then you can start building arms

off of it.

The key to success is one thing.

I don't think people will miss this.

The key to success is one thing.

Find one thing that you do better than anyone else.

That's what you start with.

I make an Apple pie that will make your eyes roll

back in your head.

That was the first thing that I started with and that's

what I got known for and oftentimes we don't do that.

As makers,

I want to make this and I want to make that,

Oh, so I've got nine different types of stop.

Start with one thing and perfect it.

It also confuses people,

you know,

and the people can get overwhelmed with choices and then instead

of making a choice,

they make no choice.

No choice.

Exactly. The other thing I want to just say in terms

of the ingredients,

you're talking about it having too many ingredients because you have

to have all of that for the products you make.

You get to a certain point where you're not going to

be wanting to go to your local grocer and mine your

ingredients. You're going to want to buy more in bulk.

And just imagine having all of those ingredients in bigger sizes

too. That would be overwhelming.

You're going to have to get another house.

Well, you're right.

That's true.

Although I can honestly say that everything doesn't need to be

purchased in bulk or from whole food vendors,

and it kind of depends on what your product is and

that's beyond the scope of this particular podcast.

But you really have to just,

you have to pay attention to the numbers and work the

numbers when you start to look at your cost and then

ultimately Price.

And that's a whole nother story too,

really is so building the price.

Yeah, for sure.

Okay. So where do you see food preneur Institute going in

the future?

Oh my goodness.

Ultimately I would like to have a brick and mortar,

an actual school or a location,

and it would be set up such that we would periodically

have classes that people could come to and host a conference.

Ooh, I love that.

Yes. So that we could all come together.

Since we're all at home and we're making these products from

home and we can talk about what we've done,

right, what we've done wrong,

what we need to change in the laws,

because everybody's cottage food law is not equal.

There are some that will not permit you to sell more

than X dollars,

like $15,000

I'm going to tell you right now,

I live in the greatest cottage food state in the nation.

I do not say that haphazardly.

There is no limit to the amount of money you can

make in North Carolina and you can ship your product to

other States.

Oh, so yeah,

the world is your oyster.

Really. The world is your butterscotch chip.

I tell folks in my class here in Cary,

North Carolina,

I said,

listen, if you cannot make this work,

there is a problem because there's nothing you can't do.

Nothing's stopping you.

Yeah. Oh my gosh.

Denae this has been such great information and a real good

insight. I,

especially for people who are just starting to think about this,

to get an overall picture of what would happen next and

understand that this is possible for them.

So what would you say to somebody who's listening,

who's really starting to think they're starting to see that glimmer

of hope that this could be something they could do?

What advice would you give them?

The first thing I would say is if you love your

product and what you're doing and you feel you could do

this day in and day out because you get gratification and

pleasure and it builds your confidence,

go for it.

All right.

Do it.

Just do it.

Do it.

Yeah. Wonderful.

Okay. And where can people learn more about the food preneur

Institute? They can just go to food poner institute.com

and when you get to the home page,

you will see a video and I'll be talking to you

and then just click the little hamburger bar.

If you want to contact me.

If you'd like to just talk to me.

I have set up Denae davis.com

it's free.

Schedule a time.

We can just talk for 30 minutes.

Wow. That is a very generous,

generous offer.

Deny. Absolutely.

I've been doing that since I started,

uh, for years and years and years and a lot of

people don't take me up on it because they say,

Oh, I don't know what to add.

I'm going to ask you lady,

I don't know what I want to do.

And I said,

you know what?

Don't worry about it.

Let's just sit on the phone quiet for a minute.

It'll come to you.

And I'm sure that that's good for you too because you

then continue to have a finger on the pulse of the

things that are concerns for people.

Maybe it's additional piece of information you want to add to

the Institute or whatever,

but there's value out of those conversations for sure.

Absolutely. And just contact me@contactatfoodpreneurinstitute.com

and of course follow us on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram

and LinkedIn and everywhere,

everywhere. Food,

Pandora Institute,

you'll find us.

Wonderful. Denae thank you so much.

This has been such great information.

I'm so excited to be presenting food preneur Institute overall to

everybody and Denay.

You're so approachable that I'd be surprised if you don't get

quite a few calls from people who are listening and I

encourage you guys to do that.

This is your opportunity to talk to an expert,

get advice you need on your specific situation so that you

can move forward and achieve whatever dream you're looking for.

So donate.

You're giving them the resources to do that.

And I am so thankful to you.

Well Sue,

I'm thankful to you for giving me this opportunity to get

this information out because it's such a small industry and I

want to share the information.

I want everyone to succeed And I want to taste everyone's

product. So yeah,

you guys need to get started.

Thanks again for being here today.

Denae thank you.

See how amazing was all of Denny's information?

What at first may seem so daunting and insurmountable becomes doable

when you have the right resources and knowledge behind you.

Those of you who are in my maker's MBA program,

get another chance this month to take a deeper dive with

DNA during our expert interview.

So get your questions ready and if any of you aren't

familiar or know what I'm talking about with maker's MBA,

this is my fully inclusive business development program.

Jump over to gift biz on rapt.com

forward slash makers MBA if you'd like to get on the

wait list to be notified when enrollment opens.

don't miss out on knowing when it's available.

Again at that time you can review all of the information

and then decide if this is something that could be right

for you up next week.

We're talking visibility.

Nobody can buy from you if they don't know you even

exist. Kind of like what I was talking about just now

with maker's MBA.

If you don't know about it,

you're not able to join more on how you can ensure

you're getting the exposure you need to grow your business.

That's next Monday.

I look forward to all of us being together then.

Bye for now.

I want to make sure you're familiar with my free Facebook

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It's a place where we all gather and our community to

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We've got a really fun post in there.

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I invite all of you to share what you're doing,

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