Cupcake Business Run By 11-Year-Old Shuttered, can reopen

The cupcake empire Chloe Stirling built out of her home kitchen has come crumbling down after Illinois health officials said the sixth-grader wasn't in compliance with local laws.

Chloe, 11, said she was told by health officials in Madison County, Ill., that if she wants to continue selling cupcakes she will need to buy a bakery or build a separate kitchen.
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House Bill 5354, which passed both the House and Senate, creates a license to sell food prepared in home kitchens. The bill was proposed after the Madison County Health Department shut down the cupcake baking business of Chloe Stirling, an 11-year-old girl who didn’t have the proper government permits. Officials informed her family that they would either have to “buy a bakery” or build another kitchen for her operation to continue, thereby saving the community from the perils of unregulated eating. There was enough of a public outcry that legislators soon introduced a bill that would legalize the work of the sixth-grade entrepreneurs and anyone else who wanted to sell goods prepared in a home kitchen.

The original bill had at least one especially pernicious requirement that would cap monthly gross income of licensees at $1,000. But that aside, it appeared to be a decent step forward to allow home kitchens to operate, to at least some extent.
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pairs4life wrote:Now, can we finally get home-baked items at bake sales?

Ms. Ingie wrote:

pairs4life wrote:Now, can we finally get home-baked items at bake sales?

Bake sales are now forbidden in schools because the products do not align with the healthy eating standards set for schools.

NFriday wrote:Hi- There is one public school district, that I believe is in the Western suburbs that is contemplating dropping out of the federal school lunch program because of all the regulations, and the fact that they can only stock healthy stuff in their vending machines. Does anybody know which school district this is? This means that they will lose their subsidized lunches, which many schools cannot afford to do. Thanks, Nancy

“We just decided that with the regulations required for the new food lunch program, our students were not going to be eating the food, they were going to be throwing the food away. And we’re close enough with our high schools that kids could leave the campus, walk across the street to a fast food restaurant or a convenience store, where they’re gonna be purchasing food that’s much less healthier than we can offer in the district. So we’re gonna be offering very healthy, well-balanced, nutritious meals, but just ones that also taste good.”

...much less healthier...

The bill puts the responsibly on the consumer to absorb the risk of eating home-cooked foods, rather than the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry or Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals. The bill, which Jindal's office announced Thursday (June 5) had been signed into law, does not apply to home-based food preparers who make $20,000 or more a year.

The following foods were specifically listed:

Baked goods, including breads, cakes, cookies and pies
Candies
Dried mixes
Honey and honeycomb products
Jams, jellies and preserves
Pickles and acidified foods
Sauces and syrups
Spices

Twelve-year-old Chloe Stirling's cupcake crusade will taste sweet success today when Gov. Pat Quinn signs a bill in her Downstate kitchen to spare home bakers from some government health and business regulations.

Pie-love wrote:Awesome-- are any LTHers planning on selling home-made goods? I've had requests to sell my homemade caramels, which I make for Xmas gifts, but never had the time to go commercial:

tgoddess wrote:I'm finally "legal!"

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