For a long time I’ve dreamed of having an organic bakery. It’s been quite a journey, but most worthwhile things in life usually require a lot of work. The details have finally come together, and we are opening a cottage bakery here at Sonrise Farms!
It all began with the discovery that the Cottage Food Laws in Illinois changed on January 1, 2022. Before then the only way to legally sell baked goods in our store was to prepare them in a commercial kitchen. That was totally impractical for me so I just put my dream on the back burner. The change in the law did not mean it was now easy, but it was at least a possibility.
I’ll give you a little glimpse of the process that we have been through over the last few months:
Four page application (double-sided so actually 8 pages )
Water test (3 tries before the lab finally got the sample )
Label samples (need 2, can't just have 1 she said )
Food Manager Certificate for myself and Elizabeth (8 hour class which wasn't free )
Four page Self-Certification Checklist
Plus a little money for health department processing
On April 25, our certification finally arrived. We are now a Registered Cottage Food Vendor with the Vermilion County Health Department! It’s still hard to believe that it is official! To make the day even better, our first wholesale delivery of stone-milled, organic flour was delivered by Harold from Janie’s Mill in Ashkum!
It has always been our desire to offer local, ethically raised, sustainable products in our farm store. Our bakery will operate with the same values in mind. We have been using Janie’s Mill flours in our home baking for several years and have been very pleased with the results. It was only natural to use their flours in our bakery. As an organic bakery, we are trying very hard to source as many ingredients as possible locally. Sadly we will need to purchase some ingredients that an not local because of organic certification rules.
Elizabeth has been working with sourdough for about 3 years. Over the last few months, she seems to have finally mastered the art. I have been baking yeast breads for over 30 years so the two of us have a unique combination of baking skills that will help us offer a wide variety of baked good. In anticipation of opening the bakery, we have stepped up our baking and experimentation.
Since all of our products are made from scratch, we will begin with a limited number of baked goods. Our plan is to offer a select few, featured baked goods each Saturday. These items will need to be pre-ordered by 7am Thursday for pick up during farm store hours on Saturdays, 10am-noon. Because of our limited production, if you don’t pre-order we cannot guarantee that these items will be available in the store when you arrive.
Check our website and social media accounts - Facebook or Instagram - to find out (and pre-order) our featured items for the upcoming week. If you are not following our social media accounts, you may want to join us so you can stay up-to-date.
We are so excited about this new venture and can’t wait to see what the future hold.
Have a great day,
Diane