Things We Don't Know That We Don't Know

 

In Alabama, we are required to be certified by the state prior to selling home-processed food goods.  This means if we want to make hot pepper jelly 

 

Apocalypse Reaper Plant, Carolina Reaper Plant, and Ghost Pepper Jelly

or any other jam, jelly, relish, pickles, dried herbs, etc. for sale (and we do!), we must every 3 years take either a food safety class at the Cooperative Extension office, or a ServSafe food-handler course on-line.  I have taken the food handler course, but when I went to the local health department to get more information about registering to sell my goods, I was strongly encouraged to take the class the Extension offers. 

Am I ever glad I did that!

Tuesday morning I got up, took care of the animals, started a load of laundry, loaded up, and headed out.  I usually enjoy being in the car but the trip to The City is my least favorite trip of all (I’m not big on tunnels under a bay).  After a brief argument with Mrs. Googly-Pants (she wanted to take me by way of a “restricted access road”...meaning a dirt driveway through an area resembling a quarry) (Which road does not really exist anyway) (She felt strongly about it) (I won, in case you were wondering), I arrived safely (and legally) at the Extension office.

Rebecca, our regional extension agent in charge of food safety, is a terrific teacher.  She was engaging, she KNOWS her stuff, she was very patient with the many questions and answered them well, and she understands how to best help the people in her class learn what they need to know to safely provide home-processed goods for sale.  She not only covered basic food safety and state law regarding establishing oneself as a Cottage Industry, she also helped us understand how to navigate getting permits from the health department, had sage advice about using the local Small Business Development Center, and even some suggestions for setting up as vendors at various festivals. 

I met some wonderful people there taking the class and we had a good time discussing the ins and outs of getting started.  I found out that some of my classmates were excited about finding someone who will be selling quail eggs and quail meat. 

I have been happy about this new adventure we are on, but it is at times a confusing journey.  I frequently say we don’t know what we don’t know to get this going, but the resources I found through this class, the help from the extension agent, and the encouragement from others who are also trying to get something started was energizing.  Enthusiasm is contagious!  

 


And oh yeah, I made 100% on the test, so there's that.

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