Selling Food Item as a Muse?

[HalfSwede]

Hello...
My wife makes a food product that everyone raves about and that lends itself really well to giving as a gift. Let's say it is assorted mixed nuts (even though it isn't...:) ). We could easily test the viability of this muse by using the method suggested in Tim's book.

A couple of questions:
1. If we decide to go ahead with selling the "mixed nuts" does anyone know if we have to worry about or deal with any specific health issues, such as licensing, inspection, etc.? Starting out, production would be done out of our own home/kitchen.

2. This is not something we would want to handle (production and shipping) for any length of time. Does anyone have any ideas on how to outsource production of a food product?
Freshness would be an issue, so we would want same day production and shipping. In other words, it is not a product that could be produced ahead of time and sit on a shelf for 3 weeks. Would it be possible, do you think, to give a manufacturer the "secret recipe" and let them produce it and ship it?

Thanks for any other suggestions.

[Feumet]

There are manufactures that do that. We hunted one down for a client several years ago and the pricing was pretty good. Checking out the Thomas Registry might be a first good step. Good Luck!

[darrin365]

Not sure, but I think licensing, inspection, etc. will depend on your local and state laws. Check there first. On the federal level, you should probably check into labeling requirements. You can check out commercial kitchens and co-packers locally to see what would be required for you to use them for producing your product. At the very least, they may be able to point you in the right direction with regards to inspection, licensing, labeling and other laws and requirements.