Oak Park residents who want to bake small amounts and sell their products at events such as farmers’ markets will be able to do so, thanks in part to the efforts of Emily Belcheva.
On November 7, the village board voted that residents would be able to sell goods they had baked at home, after Belcheva did some research about the issue.
According to an article in the Chicago Tribune, Belcheva enjoys baking sugar cookies, and a lot of people have asked if they could buy them. She studied the Illinois law governing cottage baking, and found that unless she sold the cookies at farmers’ markets, she wasn’t permitted to sell anything she baked at home. She gave her cookies away.
However, Belcheva checked the law again recently and found it had been amended in 2014, and she brought that amendment to the village board. That provision allows home bakers to sell certain products, and caps the amount a baker can earn this way to $1,000 per month.
The goods sold in this way must be “non-potentially hazardous baked goods” created in a home kitchen that is the baker’s primary residence, they must be sold by the baker or a member of his or her immediate family, and they must be properly labeled.
Officials in situations like these can use Booklets or Brochures booklets to explain specific regulations.
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