Cottage Industry Expo To Be Held At Wiregrass Ranch High July 30

With consumers looking for more locally-sourced food, small businesses offering products made from local produce and meats are becoming more common.

Called “cottage food” operations, these businesses produce small-scale, local food, where raw ingredients are processed in a way that adds value to the final product, such as creating cheese from milk or jam from berries.

Starting this type of business can be daunting, so the Tampa Bay Cottage Industry Expo will help those who are new in the industry learn what they need to know about food safety, regulations, and marketing, to get their business off the ground.

The expo will be held on Saturday, July 30, at Wiregrass Ranch High, located at 2909 Mansfield Blvd., beginning at 9 a.m. It’s open to anyone interested in cottage food operations.

“We want to enable people with a good idea to hit the ground running,” says event organizer Dr. Whitney Elmore of the University of Florida Institute of Food & Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) extension office in Pasco County. “We can provide the ‘do’s and help you avoid the ‘don’t’s when it comes to rules and regulations, and share best practices for marketing, including social media.”

Elmore says her office and the UF/IFAS extension offices in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties are working together to put on this expo in respond to a need. “We are constantly getting calls and people walking in who are asking how to get started, especially when it comes to rules, regulations and safety concerns.”

The expo is for small business owners – or people looking to start their own business – in fruits and vegetables, livestock, and hydroponics, which is a way of growing food in water without soil. Sessions will include topics such as agriculture production, legal and regulatory considerations, and marketing.

In Pasco County, Elmore says there are many you-pick blueberry farms, and when they have leftover berries at the end of the season, they also have a dilemma. What to do? “Farmers can turn their leftover blueberries into jams and jellies and sell them at a premium. Our goal is to have no waste.” Just like turning the proverbial lemons into lemonade, Elmore explains, the farmers turn their berries into “useful, high-dollar commodities.”

She says these businesses are important to the economy in Pasco County. “People are looking for locally sourced food, and they are willing to pay more for it,” Elmore says. “We want to keep our food local, produce it locally, and keep the money associated with it local.”

Some of the expo attendees are people who only have an idea and no experience in the market, while others have decades of experience in growing food or raising livestock, but are looking to improve or expand their business.

“In some cases, we’re helping people achieve a lifelong dream,” says Elmore.

Food trucks will be on site throughout the event, offering lunch, snacks and drinks for sale.

Anyone who has not yet registered for the Tampa Bay Cottage Industry Expo but would like to attend can register on-site at the opening of the event. The fee to attend for the day is $30, and event organizers ask that you be prepared to pay by credit card, as cash will not be accepted.

For more information about the expo, visit http://pasco.ifas.ufl.edu/.