Bills Would Allow Home Bakers to Sell Their Food in South Carolina

Having been a home baker for more than 30 years, Sheryl Brousseau's cakes look more like works of art. One looks like a pond with a bass jumping out of it. A groom's cake she made looks like a pair of Army boots. And there's one that you would swear from the photo is a working electric guitar.

Over the years, she kept hearing the same thing from family members and friends for whom she made the cakes. "They're telling me, 'You can compete with Cake Boss'! And I went, 'I don't know about that.' But they say, 'You ought to sell these cakes because you could make some money at it.'"

But when she looked into doing that, she found out that she would have to build a separate kitchen and have it inspected and approved by the state Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC).

Then she read about so-called "cottage food" laws in 31 other states, which allow home bakers and others who make certain kinds of foods at home to sell them legally, without having to comply with some of the state health code requirements designed for commercial bakeries and food production facilities.

She contacted her state senator, Senator Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, who is sponsoring a bill to allow home-based food production in South Carolina, limited to cakes, cupcakes, cookies, other baked goods not considered "potentially hazardous foods", candy, jellies and jams.

Despite not having to follow the same requirements as commercial food preparation businesses, Massey says the public's health will be protected.

"The bill actually provides that they have to have sanitary conditions, and it's going to allow, because of an amendment, for random inspections by DHEC," he says. DHEC can also inspect a kitchen if there are complaints.

The bill also requires food prepared in the home kitchens to have labels that read: "NOT FOR RESALE - PROCESSED AND PREPARED BY A HOME BASED FOOD PRODUCTION OPERATION THAT IS NOT SUBJECT TO SOUTH CAROLINA'S FOOD SAFETY REGULATIONS."

Brousseau says the food will be prepared in the same kitchens that people use to feed their families. "The consumer that we're going to be dealing with probably knows us, and they know when they come in and buy something from us that it's made in a home kitchen," she says.

Massey says the only opposition he's heard has been from some commercial bakeries, who say these home-based businesses will be competition for them without having to follow the same requirements. But he says someone working out of her kitchen won't be producing the volume to compete with retail bakeries.

Brousseau says she'll just be glad to be able to sell one of her works of art. "I have no intention of becoming a full-time bakery, but this will let me do it. I'll be legal. I can sell it to a person from my home," she says.

The bill got initial approval this week from a Senate subcommittee, so now it moves on to a full committee. There's an identical bill in the House.