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From Farm to Market: Food Business Essentials
Join us for an afternoon event featuring presentations from UMN Extension specialists on the basics of starting your own food business, including:
– Basic Business Planning for Farm & Cottage Enterprises
– Food Safety for Cottage Food & Direct Sales
– Understanding Food Licensing & Cottage Food Law
– Selling Farm-Raised Proteins (Meat, Eggs, Milk)
Join us for lunch, presentations, and time for discussion and 1-on-1 support and resources. Organized by the Finland Food Chain, North Shore AgroEcology Center, and the University of Minnesota Extension and supported by the Laura Jane Musser Fund.
Presenters
Cottage Foods with Autumn Stoll
Bio: Autumn is a Food Safety Extension Educator at the University of Minnesota, where she leads the development and delivery of statewide food safety programs for food businesses operating under the Cottage Food Exemption law and Product of the Farm. She conducts ongoing needs assessments to ensure that each program is responsive to emerging trends and producer challenges across Minnesota. Her mission is to equip producers with the knowledge, tools, and confidence they need to grow their businesses safely and successfully.
Description: This session will introduce Minnesota’s Cottage Food law and provide an overview of how to safely and legally produce food in your home kitchen. We will cover basic food safety practices and key requirements for selling products directly to consumers.
Good Agricultural Practices with Annalisa Hultberg
Bio: Annalisa Hultberg is a statewide Educator in Food Safety at the University of Minnesota Extension where she has coordinated the On-Farm GAPs Education Program since 2011. She leads Extension’s educational efforts around the FSMA Produce Safety Rule and Good Agricultural Practices, working with small to large-scale fruit and vegetable farmers, farm to school programs, food hubs and others to help producers understand and implement food safety on the farm and improve the quality and safety of fresh produce in the state and region.
Description: Good Agricultural Practices are farm-level practices that farmers can take to reduce risks for foodborne illness. This session will provide an overview on key ways that farms can keep their produce safe as they sell to buyers like schools, hospitals, restaurants and other buyers.
Product of the Farm (Proteins) with Jane Grimsbo Jewett
Bio: Jane is Associate Director of the Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture at the University of Minnesota. She works a lot on sustainable local food systems, regionally in northeast Minnesota and statewide. She co-coordinates Minnesota’s Local Food Advisory Committee, is past chair of the Food Innovation Team, participates in the MN Farm to Kids Alliance, and has been part of the Farmers’ Market Hubs project since 2017. Jane also raises a variety of livestock near Palisade, MN and is a meat vendor at the Grand Rapids, MN farmers’ market.
Description: This talk will cover regulations for selling what you raise (proteins) under the Product of the Farm exclusion from licensing, how to find an acceptable food processing space, when a food handler license is needed, and navigating the licensing process.