It isn’t big business. We don’t care. What do you have, maybe 4 bake sales per year? Hardly going to hurt the average grocery store. And you’re right, you do buy the ingredients from us.
I own a grocery store and am inspected by USDA twice a year (used to be four times). I am not allowed to sell anything that is not cut or made in the store.
Every hunting/holiday season, people come in asking me to butcher a carcass or slice the country ham they received as a gift. I can’t do it. USDA will shut me down.
I made and canned my own pasta sauces and sold them by the quart out of my deli. USDA shut that down because the jars did not have an ingredients list and was not inspected and approved by the state lab (in my case, UVA Medical Center). I have to send a sample along with all the ingredients and their source (where I got them from), plus pay them a large fee for approval. Wasn’t worth the hassle then but I’m thinking about doing it again.
You folks (church groups, hunt clubs, civic orgs, etc.) can do it because all you need is on one-time, local permit. No feds involved.
I entered the local Chili Cookoff a few years ago. The event had a local permit and the local Health Inspector looked at everyone’s setup. I was allowed to sell the stuff at the event but forbidden to take it back to the store and can it because I was a retailer and under USDA regs.
Sheesh, I spend as much time trying to keep up with all the federal, state, and local food laws as I do actually selling the stuff.
P.S. Send me a pie. Nothing better than home-made!!!
As to somewhat understandably not being allowed to cut game or slice gift hams, try being refused slicing of packaged meat, still wrapped and in the meat-case.
Couldn't be done, because it was beef, and pork was currently being cut. FDA would require the saw and other equipment to be totally cleaned and sanitized before cutting the beef; then repeated before going back to the pork, to prevent ‘adulteration and cross-contamination’.
Wasn't the store's nor the butcher on duty's fault. Had I wanted whole pork shoulders or fresh hams sliced, would have been, and had been before, done right away. I just showed up at the wrong time that day.
Safety, yes; safetied to death, so life no longer has any savor, no. There's too much I already miss, without losing more.
Too bad bureaucrats and legislators, in a fit of self-serving zeal, outlawed tar & feathers being applied to them. To me, that should be at least as much “protected political speech”, as the the Lefty’s “anti war” and “gay rights” protesters’ antics.