Cottage Food Operations and Meringue Powder

Hi, Gayle (PlayingWithDough Cookies), Congrats on making your first post. I look forward to many more to come!

I live in California and I never heard that one

Doesn't make much sense to me - maybe they are only restricting the use of raw eggs in royal icing? Meringue powder shouldn't pose much, if any, health risk. Anyway, the good news about CA is that they seem to have more incubator kitchens than most other areas of the country. Perhaps you can find such a shared space arrangement that would be less costly than $400/month? Though, to be honest, my lease starting out was a lot higher than that - and I managed okay, though it was a full-time business for me.

Have you gone online and checked the cottage law?  It specifically says egg cannot be used in icing, but didn't mention  meringue powder being excluded

It allows buttercream (without cream or eggs) and flat icing.  You could call it buttercream without  butter.  Another option is you can ask for a food to be added, you just fill out the firm and submit it by April 15, 2017.

Thanks for the responses.   The cottage law and the California Dept of Public Health only allow "flat" icing (powdered sugar, water), and a "buttercream" sans butter and milk (no joke).  I submitted the required food labels (for cookie and icing), and ended up "educated".  So if we are a CFO and use Meringue Powder or eggs, our Liability Insurance will not cover us as we are not following the laws.  
My understanding is this is true in all states with Cottage Food Laws.
However, I have submitted a request to have MP added in CA, and have offered to bring samples, or whatever would help them allay their fears.   We'll see.  
The reason I was posting is that I assumed there were a lot of members who run CFO and had run into this, and maybe had already tried getting MP approved.
If you haven't heard this and run a CFO, DO CHECK your local laws, as you could be at risk and not know it    I'll keep you posted if we make progress!

I don't sell cookies, but do care about the result.   Let me know what happens.

If some of you go together and have your meringue powder recipes tested in a California approved food testing lab and it comes back as NPH then you should be able to present that info to your agency for review. 

In Texas many items were tested and the info passed on with great results.  The tests ran under $100 per recipe tested.

In speaking to the manufacturer of our brand (Genies Dream) he was surprised at the California ruling on mp as well.  

Good luck to you all. Cottage Law is sometimes not totally thought out and is some cases meets lots of resistance from the health dept. 

Here is the info on testing in Texas as a resource for you to use in your research 

Foods sold under the Texas Cottage Food Law must be non-potentially hazardous.

The definition of a non-potentially hazardous food is on pages 11-13 of the Texas Food Establishment Rules. There is a chart that you can read to determine whether the combination of pH and water activity (aW) makes that item potentially hazardous or not.

If you have a food that you would like to have tested, there is a company in Texas called Food Safety Net Services which will test a sample of your food for pH and aW for around $36.00, plus a setup fee of $100. (Setup fee waived if lab services total more than $1000, as of Feb. 2014). They have offices in Dallas and San Antonio, and you can either bring in your sample or overnight it on ice.

This is a great resource for Texas home bakers who are wondering if their recipe is allowed under the law.

In Australia we do not have pasturised eggs, and the only merigue powder is for a pavlova mix, but fortunately at the local cake supply shop I was able to purchase egg white powder. My daughter is several months pregnant and the one thing the doctors insist here, is to avoid anything with raw egg e.g. mayonaise, royal icing etc. but the egg powder is considered safe. Cookie decorating is very new to me, so I need lots of practice, but am enjoying myself. I love reading all the information that's given here.

Isn't it so interesting

Sounds strange, but if you deal with authorities - don't expect them to make much sense. They'll probably argue that once you add water to meringue powder / dried egg white, it will be just like egg whites again (totally ignoring that dehydrating kills all salmonella which might have been in there at the start...)

I keep my fingers crossed that you will get them to include meringue powder, but if the authorities in the States are anything like they are here in Germany, this might easily take a decade

So, how about trying a vegan icing instead? There are a lot of recipes for that and they seem to work just fine. This way you might get your business started even if there is no chance to work with meringue powder.

Hi there! I just stumbled across your site after desperately searching for answers on how to get this royal icing with meringue powder approved. I like you have just gotten the information about it and seriously cried when I found out after just starting a small business doing cookies realizing I can't sell them. Have you gotten any information? I too filled out a request to have it added but was wondering about having it tested in a lab?? I would love to chat with you and maybe we could come up with some more ideas!!

Hi!   Thanks to Creative Cookier, I researched the law... which I'll post a pertinent section of below.   Has ANYONE ANYWHERE had Royal Icing with Meringue Powder tested for pH and aw (water activity) in a lab?

If not, I suggest we look into labs which can do the testing and their cost (one is posted above), and maybe we can get donations to help CFO's pay for this from around the country?   There is one in LA and these others in CA.

From FDA:

(c) "Potentially hazardous food" does not include:

1. (i) An air-cooled hard-boiled egg with shell intact;
2. (ii) A food with an a_w value of 0.85 or less;
3. (iii) A food with a pH level of 4.6 or below when measured at 24 °C (75 °F);
4. (iv) A food, in an unopened hermetically sealed container, that is commercially processed to achieve and maintain commercial sterility under conditions of nonrefrigerated storage and distribution; and
5. (v) A food for which laboratory evidence demonstrates that the rapid and progressive growth of infectious or toxigenic microorganisms or the growth of S. Enteritidis in eggs or C. botulinum can not occur, such as a food that has an a_w and a pH that are above the levels specified under Subparagraphs (c)(ii) and (iii) of this definition and that may contain a preservative, other barrier to the growth of microorganisms, or a combination of barriers that inhibit the growth of microorganisms.
6. (vi) A food that does not support the growth of microorganisms as specified under Subparagraph (a) of this definition even though the food may contain an infectious or toxigenic microorganism or chemical or physical contaminant at a level sufficient to cause illness.

I'm unfortunately operating at a significant loss at the moment due to business start-up costs, so can't afford to fund a significant portion of this on my own   (Please send San Jose area business my way .... )

I wish you well with the testing, @Gayle p!

Julia and others -- while you are at Cookie Con, might you ask around to see if anyone has had a US lab do testing of Royal Icing? If so, if they can share the results/report, that would be amazing!!
Thank you!!

Gayle (PlayingWithDough Cookies) posted:

Julia and others -- while you are at Cookie Con, might you ask around to see if anyone has had a US lab do testing of Royal Icing? If so, if they can share the results/report, that would be amazing!!
Thank you!!

I'm not at CookieCon. I'm at home prepping for a video shoot in a week and then a trip to China. I'm sorry, I can't help with this other than to share this forum post into my social media channels, to get more to see it and possibly come to help you out. I'll try to do this in the next couple of days, though I'm swamped right at the moment. You too can also share out this post using the social media links underneath it - please feel free to do that.

I'm late to join this conversation, but I too was told that my California CFO (San Diego) was approved...I only had to substitute for meringue powder.  I didn't actually cry, but I almost did!  I looked around online and was tempted to try a gelatin substitution or even one using liquid drained from a can of chick peas, but I haven't had the heart yet!  Has anyone tried these to do things like transfers or roses with substitutions?  Any progress in having meringue powder shown to be non potentially hazardous?  I'm ready to help!

@Gayle p thank you for starting this thread. I'm new to this site and just stumbled upon this as I was researching on CFOs since I want to start one. I make royal icing for my cookies also using meringue powder. I use Wilton's which can be bought anywhere.  I would imagine that item has been tested and approved since it's out in shelves for public purchase. Can you please share any outcome that's resulted in you either getting it approved through the county or did you end up finding another substitution to use for the meringue powder? 

@Sarah J  I have not yet heard the results from California's latest review of proposed additions to the Safe Food List (the review is/was this month), however no Meringue Powder is on the list, not even Wilton's.    A note, this is California law, not my county.... although the approval for a CFO and our ingredients used comes through the county.

It could be a great idea to ask MP manufacturers/sellers to get together to fund a test in one state that could help it be on "safe" lists starting with the USDA (as although their exact formula is not the same, their ingredients tend to be).

I'll see if I can find any updates next week, however I'm not optimistic.

Gayle (PlayingWithDough Cookies) posted:

@Sarah J  I have not yet heard the results from California's latest review of proposed additions to the Safe Food List (the review is/was this month), however no Meringue Powder is on the list, not even Wilton's.    A note, this is California law, not my county.... although the approval for a CFO and our ingredients used comes through the county.

It could be a great idea to ask MP manufacturers/sellers to get together to fund a test in one state that could help it be on "safe" lists starting with the USDA (as although their exact formula is not the same, their ingredients tend to be).

I'll see if I can find any updates next week, however I'm not optimistic.

Sounds like a cause you are passionate about - why not lead the charge yourself in contacting meringue powder suppliers on this topic? I bet if you demonstrated/estimated their lost sales in CA due the current regulations, you could pique their interest in working together to effect change.

Gayle (PlayingWithDough Cookies) posted:

@Sarah J  I have not yet heard the results from California's latest review of proposed additions to the Safe Food List (the review is/was this month), however no Meringue Powder is on the list, not even Wilton's.    A note, this is California law, not my county.... although the approval for a CFO and our ingredients used comes through the county.

It could be a great idea to ask MP manufacturers/sellers to get together to fund a test in one state that could help it be on "safe" lists starting with the USDA (as although their exact formula is not the same, their ingredients tend to be).

I'll see if I can find any updates next week, however I'm not optimistic.

Thank you for the quick response. Please keep us posted. Thank you for taking the time to research and report. It is very much appreciated!

Hi! I am new to cookie connection and hoping to jump into this conversation. I applied for my class A cottage food license in California (I'm in Sacramento county) and I just received a call saying my application was denied because of the royal icing. The inspector said that I have to find a new icing to use, and then listed off the approved icings. I use meringue powder, but he insisted that is no different than using eggs. I'm angry and devastated all at once. I continued to argue that none of the ingredients in the royal icing violated the cottage food laws, but he didn't care. He said, "I will approve it, but you have to change your icing. Do you want to tell me now what icing you will use? Or do you want to call me back once you've decided?" I don't want to be dishonest and tell him I'll use flat icing when I know I will not be changing my royal icing recipe. I want to go about this the right way. Has anyone been able to make progress on a solution? Would you like to team up and figure out how we can get royal icing on the approved list? I am a detail-oriented person, I researched the cottage food laws extensively before applying, and I was confident that royal icing wasn't violating the law in any way. I'm shocked and heartbroken, but I don't want to give up on this. 

Hi.   I did recently hear back from the California Dept of Public Health, and MP was again not approved  "Royal icing was not approved because it typically requires temperature control/refrigeration.  Foods on the CFO list must be approved as a category of food, so all royal icings must not need to be refrigerated. "

Of course we know this not to be true.   So I asked "Might you explain at least why it would be viewed as safe if I used a commercial kitchen?    It is not baked nor refrigerated.  Yet my local competitors using commercial kitchens can use it with no different processes or equipment than I use. "    No response.

California  CDPH is based upon USDA.    As MP manufacturers have something to gain with this, I contacted Wilton hoping they might be wiling to do a "US wide" food safety test of the product... no response.    

How upsetting. It really makes no sense to me. So just because some types of royal icing need to be refrigerated, ALL royal icing is forbidden? Now I'm wondering if the inspector was trying to tell me that if I just called it flat icing but kept my ingredient list the same he would have approved it. There was a slight language barrier between us so maybe I was misunderstanding him. I called him back to clarify but he didn't answer. Hopefully I will hear from him tomorrow! 

Gayle (PlayingWithDough Cookies) posted:

Hi.   I did recently hear back from the California Dept of Public Health, and MP was again not approved  "Royal icing was not approved because it typically requires temperature control/refrigeration.  Foods on the CFO list must be approved as a category of food, so all royal icings must not need to be refrigerated. "

Of course we know this not to be true.   So I asked "Might you explain at least why it would be viewed as safe if I used a commercial kitchen?    It is not baked nor refrigerated.  Yet my local competitors using commercial kitchens can use it with no different processes or equipment than I use. "    No response.

California  CDPH is based upon USDA.    As MP manufacturers have something to gain with this, I contacted Wilton hoping they might be wiling to do a "US wide" food safety test of the product... no response.    

I wonder what application would require that RI be temperature controled?  I thought that the CDPH might be objecting to the silicon dioxide used as an anti caking agent.  I'm mystifiyed.   Sorry that you're going through this.           Pip

I'm in also in San Jose and was so disappointed to learn no meringue powder. I've been experimenting with glaze but it's just not the same! 

I believe fondant is okay.  

HI, I too am worried about the royal icing recipe not being eligible for CFOs because of the uncooked eggs. I am looking into this as well. Thank you for providing all the leg work on this. 

I'm also looking into the cottage food license and am concerned about this issue with meringue powder (M.P.). I came across this info on the Facebook page "Creating Your California Cottage Food Business". I thought it might be helpful to you ladies that are trying to get the M.P. approved. (I've seen that the new approved items lists come out on July 1st and Jan 1st so I'm hoping you've all been successful in lobbying for M.P. and it will be approved on this next list - fingers crossed!) Here's the info I saw that I hoped might be helpful . . . (It's a letter from King Arthur Flour stating their M.P. is safe.) https://foodpreneurinstitute.c...ingue-powder-update/

Gayle (PlayingWithDough Cookies) posted:

Hi.   I did recently hear back from the California Dept of Public Health, and MP was again not approved  "Royal icing was not approved because it typically requires temperature control/refrigeration.  Foods on the CFO list must be approved as a category of food, so all royal icings must not need to be refrigerated. "

Of course we know this not to be true.   So I asked "Might you explain at least why it would be viewed as safe if I used a commercial kitchen?    It is not baked nor refrigerated.  Yet my local competitors using commercial kitchens can use it with no different processes or equipment than I use. "    No response.

California  CDPH is based upon USDA.    As MP manufacturers have something to gain with this, I contacted Wilton hoping they might be wiling to do a "US wide" food safety test of the product... no response.    

Do you have any updates on this issue? I posted some info I found in May (below) and was hoping to see MP approved on the new list that came out in July.  I've been making cookies as a hobby for friends and family, but am starting to get asked by strangers so I want to get my license to be legal and protect myself. I don't know what to do at this point. I certainly don't make enough at this to rent space in a commercial kitchen and that wouldn't be a home-based business anyway.  I would appreciate any new info you might have. I know there are lots of women selling their cookies from home and am really curious how they are doing this. I've tried messaging a couple of them, but they never responded which tells me they are probably afraid to because they aren't being honest about their ingredient list if they got their license.

@DIYDiva-SoExtraSweets, I can’t help you with this issue, as I don’t live in CA or sell cookies any longer, but I am tagging @Gayle p in the hopes that she’ll be more likely to see your message and can update us all.

okay thank you

I came upon this post as I too was denied for listing meringue powder in my royal icing 😡 (I totally thought this had already been approved). I am ready to lead the charge on this. I am in the process of seeing what needs to be done to get it tested and submitted to the state. Sounds like testing (at least the initial round) is not too expensive. But more in depth testing will start to add up. I will update as I get more information. Just started calling people today. Send your prayers, mojo, good juju, whatever your belief is. We’re going to need as much positive energy as possible 

Mari Alvaro posted:

I came upon this post as I too was denied for listing meringue powder in my royal icing 😡 (I totally thought this had already been approved). I am ready to lead the charge on this. I am in the process of seeing what needs to be done to get it tested and submitted to the state. Sounds like testing (at least the initial round) is not too expensive. But more in depth testing will start to add up. I will update as I get more information. Just started calling people today. Send your prayers, mojo, good juju, whatever your belief is. We’re going to need as much positive energy as possible 

Best of luck! I think this whole thing is sort of absurd, as meringue powder essentially eliminates the risk of salmonella. I'm really not sure what their concern is . . . Keep us posted!

Mari Alvaro posted:

I came upon this post as I too was denied for listing meringue powder in my royal icing 😡 (I totally thought this had already been approved). I am ready to lead the charge on this. I am in the process of seeing what needs to be done to get it tested and submitted to the state. Sounds like testing (at least the initial round) is not too expensive. But more in depth testing will start to add up. I will update as I get more information. Just started calling people today. Send your prayers, mojo, good juju, whatever your belief is. We’re going to need as much positive energy as possible 

Thank you, Mari Alvaro, for taking up the charge.  If you do get to the point of needing to raise money for testing, perhaps some of us California girls can chip in.

I just encountered this as well, and was SHOCKED when I was told I had to replace the MP. I then contacted someone at the state, who confirmed that Royal Icing is not approved in CA. I'm so frustrated! I was trying to do this the right way, and now I'm not sure what to do! 

I have tried contacting a few local ladies that I follow on Instagram  that I am fairly certain work from their home. (To see how they are making it work.) None have responded which tells me they are probably afraid to respond because they are operating outside the law (perhaps lied about using MP). A few people have said they thought the person they dealt with to get the license may have been hinting to them to say they use glaze I stead of RI. But even if one is willing to be dishonest about that, their insurance would never cover them if there was ever a claim.

Yah, I'm not willing to risk it! I've seen people list it on their labels eventhough it's not approved, so maybe they're trying to cover it on that side, and count on the state not seeing it? I guess I'm going to try it without the MP and see how it turns out! I'm happy to help if you find another Avenue to explore!