Article

Heather Hawvermale had a vision.

During the pandemic, the Montgomery County Farm Bureau member took what was more or less a hobby she shared with family and friends and turned it into a business. She made pies. Lots of them. And they were growing in popularity.

Homemade by Heather was born online in the early days of the pandemic. In a few months, dozens of orders were coming in every week.

“On Memorial Day weekend, I sold 27 pies from my porch,” she said. “I thought I might be onto something.”

Armed with the support of her mother, whom she cares for and lives with, and fueled by a dream, the single mother set out to find the perfect location to start a home business in a rural part of Montgomery County. Her “unicorn,” she called it. She found it in Germantown – a ranch home on five acres off winding, hilly roads with an outbuilding perfectly suited for a small-scale food business venture.

Once she settled into her new home during the spring of 2021, she went to work on building her business and her brand. She grows some of her own produce and makes her own pies and other baked goods almost all from scratch. She was preparing to set up one of the outbuildings on her property to bake and sell from.

Starting small grew very big

Trying to do the “right thing” from the outset, she called her township and her county health department to get the ball rolling on what she needed to do to start her small, home-based bakery.

But, it wasn’t that simple.

After a series of phone calls, emails and submitted CAD plans over several months, she was instructed to install a new septic system, specific lighting that needed to be up to code and several other checklist items that needed to be done to open a commercial kitchen and retail store.

However, going that big was never her intention. She planned to start small, use her own kitchen and sell out of a retail store in the outbuilding, nothing more. It is unfortunately an all-too-common tale, according to Leah Hetrick, Ohio Farm Bureau director of legal education and member engagement.

“We have so many members who have amazing products and ideas like this, but they discover their idea comes with an overwhelming amount of rules and regulations, and they don’t quite know where to start,” she said.

What Hawvermale wishes she’d understood from the outset, is that the people she was communicating with didn’t understand that she was asking about a cottage business or agritourism and were giving her advice “as though I was opening a grocery store,” she said, which was never what she wanted to do.

Ohio Farm Bureau can help with your questions

As all of this was happening, she ran into a friend who works at the county Farm Bureau. She told her about her struggles getting her small, home-based business set up as she envisioned. Her friend mentioned that since she was a member, Farm Bureau’s team could help answer Hawvermale’s questions.

She also told her that Ohio Farm Bureau was creating a Small-Scale Food Business Guide to help members just like herself. It was released in the summer of 2024. Once Hawvermale got a copy, she broke down in tears.

“If I’d only known, I would have saved a lot of time, heartache and money,” she said, noting that the questions she was seeking answers to were all in the guide.

“I receive calls on a regular basis from people looking to get their new business off the ground, and they all share the same concern that they ‘don’t know what they don’t know,’” Hetrick said. “The Small-Scale Food Business Guide was created with the intent to address these concerns and arm our members with the information they need to navigate the regulations that may or may not apply to their small food business.”

Having poured tens of thousands of dollars into the now bigger commercial project, Hawvermale said there is “no choice” but to make it work, but her advice to would-be cottage bakers who want to start or expand their own business is simple, in retrospect.

“Don’t do what I did,” she said. “If I had contacted Farm Bureau and used my membership to find answers to my questions first, I could have done what I wanted to do with half the budget I spent. Contact the county Farm Bureau. They would be my first suggested resource.”

Key points

• Home-based cottage food businesses can be a simpler way to get a food business off the ground.
• Local, state and federal regulations surrounding food are complicated.
• Farm Bureau’s Small-Scale Food Business Guide is a helpful members-only resource.

Starting from scratch

• Step 1: Know your regulations. While there may be no specific licensing requirements, cottage foods are still subject to ODA sampling.
• Step 2: Select a food item that is among the approved non-potentially hazardous food items.
• Step 3: Ensure that you have a compliant home kitchen within your residence where you can produce your chosen food item.
• Step 4: Package the food item in a safe and sanitary manner and do not use reduced oxygen packaging.
• Step 5: Create and properly place your label. Remember to include all required items and be sure to include nutritional facts if you make a nutrient content claim.
• Step 6: Decide where you would like to sell your food item within Ohio.