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The jam at high temperature thing only makes sense if you know how to cool the jam, sterilise jars and store of the jam after it has been cooked - you could leave jam to cool for 3 days with no lid and pot it in dirty jars so I don't get why high temperatures are relevant.

Its almost certain they have drafted the law, been told it will wreck everything, implemented it anyway, wrecked everything, then come out with a few illogical fixes in a belated effort to fix what they broke.

So, they say, oh, but jam is cooked till its very hot so doesnt need to follow the rules, rather ignoring the fact that whole point of the rules is to make sure things are cooked properly.
Sausages and burgers are both cooked till they're hot, its sort of the point of cooking, the problem is when they arent cooked properly.

Its a sound bite meant only to sound good not a logical reason meant to make sense

contadina wrote:In Italy and many other other places in Europe laws such as these are generally seen as guidelines - feeding chickens kitchen scraps, killing and butchering your own animals on site and selling your excess to neighbours, friends and wholesalers is the norm. If a law makes no sense then everyone ignores it.

Contadina, come to Germany and meet the guys from the food monitoring department - no chance to ignore the law.
They are examining every place where food is packaged and/or prepared and sold. From the weekly market to burger restaurants to butchers and bakers - everyone involved in selling food will see them on an erratic time scheme.
I have a tidy and clean kitchen but for processing and bottling my honey I will need another room, fully equipped but can't afford that - so we sell comb honey only, straight from the hive with the frames, and with that they are okay...
French and italian people are traditionally used to ignore laws - in Germany impossible because there always will be a department to monitor the execution of the laws...
I would love to sell my stuff (not only bottled honey but mead too) but the regulations are so complicated and expensive - no way.

Sorry I don't know anything about selling food but have had experience of growing and selling plants and cut flowers. If anyone has the space or time I would highly recommend this as a sideline.

Having said that there are so many different varieties and choices and some of them are a lot harder than others. I learned the hard way.

I've been working on an article about what I've learned and written up about the whole thing.

Couple of suggestions here though:

Bedding plants are not as easy as they look. They are sold so cheaply everywhere and also it's hard to get them looking so uniform and good as the big nurseries. Also they need so much care it's difficult. They are difficult to transport uif you needed to deliver them. By the gate should be ok though.

Unusual plants or herb plants or shrubs might be more profitable.

Cut flowers can be profitable. I was surprised that I found them easier to sell than plants. For one thing they are guaranteed to die so you got a repeat customer there if they were nice

Cut foliage. You might even have some growing anyway? Very good for flower arrangers who don't want to decimate their own garden.

How about producing some seeds? I didn't get around to this and didn't really have enough land but a friend used to sell a packet of seeds alongside the bunch of flowers.

Anyway a couple of ideas.

Alienor60 wrote: Contadina, come to Germany and meet the guys from the food monitoring department - no chance to ignore the law.

that doesn't surprise me Alienor, whether either nation would care to admit it, I think the UK and Germany are very close cousins, with a fairly similar mindset. The French and Italians, meanwhile are all over the place While Italy may have a bad reputation for bureaucracy it is tempered with a healthy disregard for it also.

I haven't made jam for many years although when i did it was lovely. Do remember being surprised at the amount and cost of the sugar needed though.

Would it be very profitable to make and sell it if you did find a way?

You don't need to buy jam sugar which is expensive. I buy the cheapest white sugar I can find and have only ever used ordinary sugar and lemon where necessary for setting.

Of course you may actually BE talking about ordinary sugar in which case ignore me.....

Yes I used jam sugar. Although I had no idea (and still don't) what the difference is.

Will buy the standard stuff this year. Cheers.

It has extra pectin in (which is what is needed for the set), but if you follow a recipe which says use ordinary sugar and x amount of lemon juice, you should be fine. Fruit has differing amounts of pectin in it naturally so some doesn't need lemon at all. Strawb jam might need jam sugar because it is very low in pectin. If you google jam/pectin/fruit or similar you will find lists of what is high, medium or low in pectin.

not all preserving sugar has extra pectin.. some is just 'better quality' - supposedly.

i use ordinary white.

That's a bit of a rip off then I've never actually looked at a packet of jam sugar, just see it on the shelf at 'that' time of year and think...... How Much???

contadina wrote:I sometimes think the UK is the only country who pays heed to such laws. Whenever anything is in season over here there are wholesalers who pop up all over town to buy your excess olives, cherries, figs, almonds etc. In Italy and many other other places in Europe laws such as these are generally seen as guidelines - feeding chickens kitchen scraps, killing and butchering your own animals on site and selling your excess to neighbours, friends and wholesalers is the norm. If a law makes no sense then everyone ignores it.

Same here in France - nobody seems to take any notice of the regulations

I sell eggs, vegetables, jams and Christmas turkeys to neighbours. I also hope to sell eggs, preserves, cakes and veg to visitors to the gite.

i have joined an organisation called country market they run small scale markets for home producers to sell their products at there are some rules to follow but your kitchen doesn't need inspecting but you do need to do your food hygine cert .
some of the rules make sense some dont (cant use comercal jam sugar or commercal pectin ) lots of good info in the membership pack so well worth joining.
now the best bit as it is run as a co-op the cost to join is a whole 5p
so well worth it in my book so look out your local one.
as for selling at the farm gate my understanding is if you grow it then make it in to something to increase the value as long as you label it as homemade you can sell it at your gate. but you cant buy in to sell or sell to a shop with out lots of paper work/ inspections