basicbatch said:
Great info here and lots of options to choose from. I ended up ordering 2 more cases of traditional ball mason jars while I continue to experiment. Those can all be gifts for friends and family to sample. I like the idea of a one piece lid so i'll definitely be deciding between the one piece mason lid (I agree with you AJ, traditional is good for farmers markets) or the lid posted in the original post.
Definitely need to start brushing up on NJ laws for packaging and selling. I currently work in a restaurant so I wonder if i'd be able to utilize the kitchen after hours for prep and bottling
Usually you can use a restaurant or other commercial kitchen (think Eagles, Elks, Masonic, fire hall, church, community center) after hours. In WA, the caveat is that once you are licensed in a particular location you can only process at that location. If you move locations, it requires re-licensing. Not a big deal, but another $55.....
It can be confusing to figure out who to talk to about licensing. I've found that in most cases, your local health district that does restaurant inspections is not the agency that licenses food processors. I'd encourage you to get in touch with your state licencing agency to start with. Usually the restaurant licensing people don't know squat about food processing, they'll tell you it's not allowed, or charge fees for licenses you don't need, or don't know what's considered a processing facility.....
Where I live in WA state, if I process and sell RETAIL (directly to the customer at the local farmers market) I have to have my kitchen, septic and water systems inspected and approved by the county health district (this was going to be about $500 back-in-the-day...), plus pay a yearly licensing fee ($100 to sell at the FM) and yearly water tests done by the county lab (even though I already do yearly testing with an independant lab...but NOOooooo...that's not good enough! It has to be the COUNTY's own lab for the water test...
)
And after all that with the county, I still have to get licensed and inspected with the state dept of AG in order to wholesale inside WA state, and since I am selling across state lines, that also required registering with the FDA. Everywhere else in the state, if the processor is state licensed, that's good enough for the local farmers markets. But not where I live!
So I bagged the FM, and just went wholesale and FDA registered.
Re: canning jars- Not knowing where you are getting the jars from, but check out wallyworld, and around here, the Cenex or North40 farm supply stores actually have pretty good prices on canning jars. It's kind of out of season so if you don't see them on the shelf, ask.
Good Luck and Have Fun!!!!
SL