hello everyone.
I was just wondering about the whole texas laws about selling food from home. when i was living in texas my mom kept trying to get me to sell my cake pops but I was too afraid of fines. I told her about it being illegal and we keep arguing back and forth about it. She says that in her dialysis there is always someone walking around selling tamales they made from home wrapped in tin foil. Which yeah...I'm a bit of a bar fly and I remember every weekend a couple of guys would walk into the bar with coolers filled with tamales and sell them wrapped in foil. my mom also said there was a woman with a little table outside some shopping area who was also selling home baked goods and it didnt seem to be for charity. (emphasis on seem).
So all these people I see walking around selling tamales and other home made goods in public places, are they doing it illegally?

Until Sept. 1, 2011 it is still illegal to sell any food product from ones home kitchen. The new law that goes into effect on Sept. 1, 2011 allows home bakers to sell non potentially hazardous foods from their home. You can have a website for advertising and information, but you cannot have an online orderform or a shopping cart. You can't use the internet to execute the sale of your baked goods. You must have face to face contact. You can only sell from your home. You cannot sell your products from a farmers market, grocery store, or other retail outlet or restaurant. So the selling at a grocery store is a no-no.

This law does not allow for catering or potentially hazardous foods. Those still must be produced from a commercial kitchen.

go to www.texasfoodcottagelaw.com for all the information about the new law.

so up until september 2011, if someone was to "tell on" these tamale and baked good people, they would also be fined? why does the hospital and bar allow them to do it then? arent they worried about getting in trouble?

Yes they could get in trouble until then. The tamale people will still be in trouble if they are producing them from home. Tamales are potentially hazardous foods so the SB 81 does not cover them only people producting baked goods, jams, jellies, and dry spice mixtures. But honestly I happen to love the tamales that our local guy comes around and sells on behalf of his church. To each his own.

aha. thank you very much for clearing things up!

This is the link to the new TX info: http://www.texascottagefoodlaw.com/

Does this mean that we'll still be limited on the places that we can deliver our cakes to? I was curious about this because I know some venues require that you be "licensed" in order to deliver something to their site.