Preserving MI Harvest-Selling MI Honey and Maple Syrup - Safely!
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EmailFebruary 26, 2025
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Learn how to safely handle, package and store honey and maple syrup, and understand the MDARD exemption guidelines for selling these products in Michigan.
The 2025 MI Ag Ideas to Grow With conference was held virtually, February 24 - March 7, 2024. This two-week program encompassed many aspects of the agricultural industry and offered a full array of educational sessions for farmers and homeowners interested in food production and other agricultural endeavors. More information can be found at: https://www.canr.msu.edu/miagideas/
Video Transcript
just a couple of introductory slides. We did want to encourage you to follow us on our Facebook page, which is called Think Food Safety. So we do have a lot of up to date recalls, food safety tips, recordings of our past Q&A or serving up food safely webinar, which its now called. Those are just some examples of some of the posts you'll see. Our online classes are also listed there and with the registration link. We do have a couple of resources we'll be sharing with you following this program. One is the food safety hotline phone number on your screen, and another is this Ask extension feature. That is an online format, so you can access it through our website. We will be sharing this link also with you in the follow up email. But this is a great resource because you can ask the food safety team question, but you can also if the question is more appropriate for a master gardener or an agricultural specialist or somebody like that, it'll get channeled to the appropriate expert who will then answer it via your email. And I guess I should have updated that slide. I'm sorry. But these are some examples of some of our classes. We have serving up food safely, which is a Monday program. We have a shorter presentation. We have this is our program that we offer at least on a monthly basis at this point. So it's selling my honey and maple syrup safely. And then we have Michigan Cottage Food and Preserving MI Harvest. Those are just some of our online programs, and we encourage you to join. You can find out more about those through our Facebook page. Okay, so selling honey and maple syrup in Michigan. This is the program you're joining tonight this morning, and so we're happy to have you. I'm sorry, Karen, you are our first presenter Welcome, everybody. So this was created by myself, Karen Fifield and Kara Lynch. We know that selling honey and maple syrup in Michigan is quite a big thing, and it actually has some exemptions. So we're going to talk a lot about those things today. The things that we're going to try to have for our objectives in this class is help you understand safe food handling practices with honey and maple syrup when you process them. We aren't going to talk about necessarily how to process them, but definitely some important things in keeping them safe. We want you to be able to recognize what is the right packaging and labeling and things like that for storing or keeping honey and maple syrup safe while you have it in your possession, whether it's in a jar to sell, making labels or just storing big quantities. And also to be able to describe what are the exemptions that are the guidelines for selling honey and maple syrup in Michigan. So we'll go through all of those things, and we'll talk pretty much in depth about that as what's the difference, and also that it's not a cottage food. So it does not fall under cottage foods. We will not be covering in this class, once again, the process of making and collecting honey or maple syrup. This class is focused on the safe food handling and also exemption guidelines for selling honey and maple syrup. And we do have many resources that we will share with you after this program, including things like beekeeping for maple syrup or maple syrup, and we provide you with all these resources in a follow up email. So retailers and processors of pure honey and maple syrup are exempt from licensing requirements through the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development or MDARD with certain conditions that we will explain throughout this program. Honey and maple syrup are not considered a cottage food, but they're very similar. There may be a situation when they become a cottage food, which we'll explain that a little bit later, so So let's go through the Michigan food law. The main causes of food borne illness includes poor personal hygiene, cross contamination, and improperly cleaned and sanitized equipment and utensils. All of these unsafe practices allow microorganisms such as bacteria or viruses, molds, and yeast to grow. If you are not careful, these microorganisms can easily contaminate the food that you're working with. The spread of these microorganisms can be controlled by following proper food safety procedures. Honey and maple syrup producers who meet the licensing exemptions still must meet all requirements of the Michigan food law. That means that the producer must practice safe food handling, such as collecting and storing honey and maple syrup using a food grade containers, practicing good personal hygiene through all steps of collection and processing, packaging, and selling this, and that includes things like washing our hands, wearing clean clothing, not working or processing when you're sick. Covering or contain your hair, including beards and other potential physical contaminants and covering all wounds, using food safe cleaning and sanitizing methods. And it is the responsibility of the producer to be sure that the syrup or honey they are making is safe despite the fact that you may not be operating under a food license. There have been hazardous processing practices that have led to unsafe honey and maple syrup. Some of which have led to food borne illness outbreaks. Even if there is not a pathogen related illness, poor control, overproduction, packaging, labeling, et cetera, can affect your business reputation, and of course, it can impact the financial outcome of your business selling honey or maple syrup. So we wanted to highlight some of the differences between the exemptions of maple syrup and honey versus cottage food law. So under maple syrup or honey, it can be sold direct to customers, wholesale or online. However, a cottage food can only be sold direct to customers, and there, it must be a face to face contact. So if you were selling a cottage food, you have to be and you're the producer, you have to be the person to sell it face to face to the customer. With honey and maple syrup, that is not part of their guidelines. The exemption, one of them is they're exempt from licensure with if you're selling less than $15,001 in gross sales, and it is separate gross amount for honey and maple syrup. So in other words, you could sell $15,001 in honey and $15,001 in syrup. But for Cottage foods, you're exempt from licensure with $25,000 in gross sales. So you'd have to be under that mark if you were selling a cottage food. You can process in an unlicensed facility, but the language on the label must reflect the word facility. However, in a cottage food, you can process in an unlicensed home kitchen, and the label once again will reflect the word kitchen instead of facility. So there's another big difference on the label. You can sell at an unmanned roadside stand, so you can do it by the honor system or things like that for honey and maple syrup. But if you sold at a roadside stand, you have to be the person when you're selling cottage food to do the exchange. You have to be able to talk to that customer and do that exchange face to face once again. You are allowed to sell across state lines if you follow both Michigan laws like labeling and the other state that you're selling it in. So you have to follow both laws when you're selling honey or maple syrup. But in Michigan, sales for cottage foods, they cannot be made across state lines. They have to be made in Michigan. Also, you do not need to collect Michigan sales tax on honey or maple syrup, but you must collect and pay Michigan sales tax on cottage foods. So there's some big differences in the exemptions. And I just kind of gave you the answers to this, but how much money can you currently make selling honey and maple syrup under the exemption? Well, the answer is obviously $15,001. Individuals who produce honey and maple syrup are limited to that $15,001 in gross annual sales per household. Gross annual sales are the amount of money that you can take in from the sale of your product before taking out any expenses. And expenses would include things like the material to produce your product, to label your product, packaging, if you were selling at a booth or anything like that. So booth rental. Payment cannot be accepted online. I'm not sure about that on honey and maple syrup either. Anyways, if you exceed the gross annual sales of $15,001, you would no longer fall under the guidelines of the food law exemption. And then you would be subject to commercial food regulations. So that would mean that you would need to have a established license from MDARD for processing and a warehousing license as well as a facility license for the building of or a kitchen in which you would have it produced. So This income, $15,001 is for each item. In other words, you can sell $15,001 in honey and $15,001 in maple syrup. Sales tax is not collected on honey and maple syrup. It is collected on cottage foods, though. There are some criteria that if met, would allow you to sell plain honey or maple syrup under this exemption, then allowable infused honey or maple syrup as a cottage food product. Note that not everything is allowable, and we will touch on that a little bit later. So, once again, cottage food items have a cap of $25,000, but they have to be sold face to face. And the The third there's another one. This is how it could play out. This means you could sell a total of $37,001, such as 15,001 for honey and 15,001 for maple syrup, and then 25,000 under this Cottage food law for related cottage food product. For example, the maple syrup, and then would be maple candy or honey. And then you could have like hot honey and things like that. So there's a lot of ways to do that. These limits may increase both for the cottage food and the maple syrup, and or exemptions and honey exemptions, and we'll keep you posted on that if that does change at all. Okay, so are honey and maple syrup processors exempt from MDARD licensing and inspections? Yes. Honey and maple syrup producers are exempt from MDARD licensing and inspection requirements unless a complaint is made. Any food offered to the public must be safe. So regardless of where it is produced, honey and maple syrup operators are responsible for assuring consumers that they are producing safe foods. If a complaint is made to MDARD, MDARD can inspect your production and storage areas and seize product when it's necessary. Now I'm going to hand it back to Kara. Okay. Well, one of the most important factors that contributes to honey and maple syrup quality is a clean and sanitary environment. This means really that you need to start even before you tap your trees or harvest honey from your hives. There's a lot of microorganisms that we refer to that includes things like bacteria, molds, yeast, viruses. Those are enemies of high quality syrup and honey and they can create unsafe conditions. They can also affect both color and flavor. Since these culprits can be found in unclean equipment and they can grow like crazy in a very short time, careful sanitary practices are critical when you collect, process, and pack honey and maple syrup. When running a food operation, it is really important to have good personal hygiene. This really applies to everyone who is helping prepare honey and maple syrup. So we can't stress the importance of practicing good personal hygiene enough. It is really a controllable factor and it needs to be part of your training and your monitoring practices. What exactly do I mean when I say good personal hygiene? Well, the big thing is containing hair, with the hat, with the hairnet, with the pulling it back with the ponytail. This also can include facial hair. That can get into your product and be a physical contaminant. That's going to be bad for your business, for your reputation. Do what you need to to protect that contamination getting into your product. Also having clean fingernails that are also short. We can harbor a lot of pathogens in our nail beds under our nails. It's really important that we have kept them short and then also clean them. We're going to talk a little bit more about that with clean hands in just a minute. Okay. It is important that anytime they are contaminated, that they get cleaned, not just at the beginning. Also, wearing clean aprons and clean hats, clean clothing is also really important. Just making sure when we're going out to work in the woods to collect and then to process and bottle that we're not throwing on something that was just worn in the animal barn or that has a lot of animal hair on it. Um Those are just extreme examples, but it is really important for cleanliness, also to create a pathogen free environment that you have clean aprons and hats, as well as your wounds. We should cover them with a bandage as well as gloves. Okay You don't want my pus or my blood in your honey or maple syrup and I certainly don't want yours. Then also, not working or processing, bottling when you're sick. It's amazing how quickly we can spread some pathogens and there's a lot of evidence to point that this is a major way that we spread sickness is if somebody is coming to work sick. Delay it if you need their help. But all of these can help prevent contamination and food borne illness. Once again, don't process honey and maple syrup if you or anyone in your household has been sick and a good guideline is the 24 hour rule. If somebody has diarrhea or vomiting, then they shouldn't work around food for at least that time if they have those symptoms. Also, just remember that even if we wait 24 hours, their illness can still be transmittable. So Yes, maybe they can come back to work and help bottle or process or whatever it might be. But once again, you don't want to put a black mark on your product, making sure that they're doing whatever they need to do to protect them, making sure that they clean their hands well, that they have clean clothing, maybe even wearing a mask if necessary, things like that. Also, not just if the individual is sick, but if anyone in their house has vomiting, diarrhea, jaundice, sore throat with a fever or an infected wound, those are some considerations that you need to think about as well. Then certainly no processing by anyone that's been diagnosed with a food borne illness. That includes things like norovirus, hepatitis A, shigella, E. Coli, salmonlla if anybody has a food borne illness, you should have a written release by a doctor as well as the health department. So I talk about how important handwashing is, but I think what's really important to remember is it's not done correctly many times. Here's a short video just to remind you what are some things that you need to think about when you're washing your own hands, as well as having some of your help wash your hands. Hand washing is the most important method for preventing the spread of sickness and disease. Let's learn the proper way to wash our hands. First, wet your hands under warm running water. Next, apply soap and lather. Be sure to clean between your fingers, the backs of your hands and your palms. Now count for 20 seconds or sing the ABCs while scrubbing. Next, rinse your hands under warm running water. Use a paper towel to dry hands, then turn off the faucet. Remember to wash your hands before preparing food, after using the bathroom, and anytime they become contaminated. All right. So that's just a very brief video. This is one of the resources about that. That we are going to share with you. I'm going to go ahead and to the next slide. I just wanted to bring to your attention how easily it is for us to overlook washing our hands. There was actually a study done in 2018, it was published where NC State and USDA collaborated to bring people in and they observed them preparing food. This can also be applied, I think, to your operation when you're collecting and packaging products. But they observed people to see if they washed their hands appropriately, which that slide really goes over that, that 2o second rule and doing it well, and then also doing it every time that it needed to be done. What they found was alarming. There was only 3% of the time did people wash their hands when they were preparing food appropriately and did they do it anytime they got contaminated? We can all do better, and I think it brings a lot of that to your attention. I wanted to talk now about shifting gears and talking about cleaning and sanitizing your equipment and surfaces. When I say the word sanitizing, I'm saying what you need to be doing is reducing those microorganisms to a safe level that can cause a food borne illness. An effective sanitizer is a mixture of disinfectant grade chlorine bleach and water. Now, a lot of people will say, I don't like to use bleach or I don't use it. I prefer other chemicals, and that's fine. There are other food grade chemicals, a couple of them that are used in food service, commonly are iodine and quaternary ammonium or otherwise known as quats. But for today's training, we are going to just briefly talk about bleach because it is used readily. It's widely available, so it's something that you can purchase at any store, and it's very easy to use. If you are using a different food grade chemical, we just ask that you follow the manufacturer's recommendations for that. But for using bleach, many times we may use it inappropriately. What's important is to know how much bleach to use. You do need to check the strength of the sodium hypochloride in bleach and use test strips. There's a picture on the right hand side of your photo that does show the test strips. I'm going to hover over the word chlorine there. You have to buy if you're using chlorine bleach, you have to buy test strips specific to that chemical. And then also you'll see these are the parts per million that are measured here and right in the middle are the 50 to 100 parts per million. So again, the test strips can ensure that you have the appropriate sanitizer strength. The correct strength is 50 to 100 parts per million for food contact surfaces. Now, many people think, a little bleach, that's good. We can just pour a lot more in there will kill everything. Well, That can be dangerous because if you over concentrate your sanitizer, then you can leave a chemical residue and you don't want that either. It can be caustic to people that are working there, it can be caustic to some other products you use, and then it can leave a residue on some of the tools or the equipment that you're using, and it can impact the flavor of your product. Now that strength will decrease over time, you do want to make a new solution each time, and then also test that strength every couple of hours while you're using it. Maybe you're sanitizing buckets. Maybe after you've used it for several buckets, maybe it's not as effective. Testing it is important. We have another short video that kind of goes over some of the points that I'm talking about. But fragrance added bleach isn't a food safe product, and that is mentioned here. And then also after you have sanitized them, we can recontaminate that surface by a dishcloth if we're using that to dry products by our hands, by putting something back in the toolbox that you just sanitized. So making sure you're being cognizant of that It's important that we clean and sanitize anything that your hands or food touch. Examples are counters, tables, there are buckets that you use to collect maple syrup and honey or sap, I should say, equipment like your spiles for tapping trees, tubing, unclean items can cross contaminate your food. Lastly, I wanted to mention that disinfecting wipes, a lot of people love those and I think that's, I use them in my house, but I use them on non food contact surfaces. I don't use them in my kitchen unless I'm wiping down handles to my refrigerator or a door or something like that. The disinfecting wipes are a stronger product and actually, it's going to highlight that in this next video, but they're too strong to use with food and it says that on the label. So we do have a handout that captures all of this information I'm talking about, and we will be sending it out to you as well, and it is referenced at the end of this next video. Cleaning and sanitizing or disinfecting are important for removing both visible debris and also killing any microorganisms. Cleaning is defined as removing dirt and debris from the surface. The process involves warm soapy water followed by a rinse to physically remove these impurities. Cleaning needs to be done before sanitizing or disinfecting. Sanitizing reduces bacteria on the surface to a safe level. Sanitizing is recommended for food contact surfaces. Disinfectant solutions are stronger as they kill almost all of the pathogens. Disinfecting is important to use in areas like bathrooms, door handles, and surfaces that don't have contact directly with food. There are a variety of products that can be used for both sanitizing and disinfecting. Bleach is a common product that can be used for both. The difference is how much bleach is used. The active ingredient in bleach that destroys pathogens is sodium hypochlorite. We can cause a chemical contamination on a surface that may come in contact with food. Many bleach products that state disinfecting on their label are not meant for a food contact surface. One example is chlorine disinfecting wipes. These are not meant to be used on food contact surfaces, and the label clearly states this. Use these on surfaces that will not come in contact with food or be sure to use a clean water rinse following its use. Do not use bleach that is scented, concentrated, or a gel solution. Be cautious. It is easy to grab bleach that is too low of a concentration of sodium hypochloride, or not intended for sanitizing at all. You might find bleach that clearly states on the label that its purpose is for deodorizing or whitening laundry, not for cleaning or sanitizing. To make a sanitizing solution from bleach, the goal is to achieve a concentration that will destroy bacteria and viruses, but also not be too strong. A solution that is too weak will not be effective. A solution that is too strong can cause a reaction or illness or leave a chemical residue. It is important to follow guidelines for mixing a solution. The best way to know if you've mixed a solution to the proper concentration is to use test strips. Ideally, a bleach solution should be 50 to 100 parts per million for a food contact surface. Most bleach products are found to be 7.25 to 8.25% sodium hypochlorite, and the correct formula would be one teaspoon of bleach per gallon of water. Note, this is not much. The solution should not have a strong bleach odor. If you use chemicals other than bleach, use test strips specific to that chemical. For further information on how to mix varying concentrations, please refer to MSU Extensions Safe Santizing and Disinfecting fact sheet found on the publications tab of our Safe Food and Water page. This is a chart. It is in the handout that we'll be sharing with you. But just to reinforce a couple of points here, what is key to making a proper sanitizing solution is to make sure you're measuring out your bleach and to check the strength of your bleach solution using test strips. Once again, it says here at the top of the chart, but if 50 to 100 parts per million is used for general sanitizing of food contact surfaces. Now, if there's maybe some feces or vomit or body fluids. Maybe you're working outside, so maybe that's not even just human, maybe that's also from animal sources. There are different references that say you can use 200, all the way up to 100 parts per million to use that for those surfaces. Now you probably will need a clean water rinse after that. But again, too much bleach can be harmful and corrosive and create a chemical contamination. Too little will not do the job of sanitizing. Many of you probably are just working out of your home, and so we're wondering, we only have the two compartment sink. How can we sanitize our equipment or utensils after we're washing and rinsing them? You can do it by washing and then rinsing off and then putting it in a second sink with sanitizing solution and then air drying, or you can make a three compartment sink on your own, and this picture just shows that, how to do that. You can submerge items like packing jars and some of your equipment in there. Um, so again, sink one is for washing, sink two is for rinsing, sink three is for sanitizing. Alternative to using chemicals for sanitizing utensils and equipment, you can also use heat, and that is less commonly used than chemical sanitizing. But when it is used, it's often done using a dishwasher. So if you're using a dishwasher, we're just asking that you follow the manufacturer's guidelines. Items can also be placed in boiling water and for that reason, are limited to smaller mobile equipment and jars that you might be using for packaging. So if you are using a dishwasher, just run your containers through a hot cycle in your dishwasher and allow them to completely dry before you fill them. This is especially important with honey, and we'll talk about that in a little bit. Regardless of which type of sanitizing solution you use, be sure that your equipment and containers are not wet. And then, Karen is going to be talking more about some of the equipment used to collect maple syrup, and one of those is tubing. The tubing used in a closed loop system to collect sap, or maple sap is commonly used in their larger scale operations. To clean those tubes, the sap is actually vacuumed out of the lines, then they are flushed with hot water, which is then blown out of the lines using forced air, and then it's capped, and then it just sits there capped. Then the tap or spires are replaced annually and the tubing is then reattached at that time. Karen's going to talk more about that shortly. I also wanted to mention that because you are collecting maple sap that's used to make maple syrup or also collecting honey, and the equipment needed to process them is of a nature where it's really doesn't make sense for you to do that in a kitchen. Contrary to the cottage food requirement. Honey and maple syrup must be produced in a facility that meets basic processing requirements that is outlined in the food code. What that means to you is some things that you do need to consider are pest control. For example, are items that you're using protected from pests? Do you use chemicals to control pests in a safe and instructive manner? Um, so you're not getting those chemicals into your food product. Are protocols and practices in place to prevent pests from invading your collecting or processing or storage operations in your facilities. Another standard you want to meet is a covered facility. This is important to prevent airborne droppings. Now an indoor facility is a must for honey production. I don't want to say indoor, I don't mean in your home. But when you're processing that honey outside, you're going to be attracting bees and wasps and that can also attract additional foragers, thereby bringing an increased risk of honey contamination and also that threat of insect stings. You do have to be cognizant of that. It's not an inside your home environment, but it might be an indoor facility. Also, you want to have safe water. More often than that, this is a portable system. You're using that portable water for washing your items in your hands. You want to take a water container with you out into the woods with soap, disposable towels and a garbage container so you can wash your hands as necessary. We all know that that's something that we don't think about sometimes until we need it. Then lastly, restrooms. This is important when you're collecting samples out in the forest or farm, woods. It can be a major step in prevention of bacterial contamination that are transferred via the fecal oral route and that's gross. My last slide before we get into some of the specifics with selling. But again, we are talking about safely collecting. These are all important considerations. But this is making sure that we're using food grade containers. We want to make sure you're not repurposing buckets like paint, agricultural products, automobile, or other single use containers like cottage cheese. Examples of food grade containers can include food grade buckets that you can purchase through maple syrup suppliers or a food wholesale store, that you're also using a food grade plastic container or a food grade glass container, and we are going to be highlighting that later. Also, many times our equipment needs to be lubricated, in that case, we also want to make sure that your lubricants are food grade. There's a couple of pictures here on the left that you see. Those are both food grade products. When we're talking also about filtering materials, those should be food grade, and those can include things like stainless steel, nylon, cheesecloth, wool, cotton, paper based products. Those are all great examples, and there's a lot in the market that you can get through different suppliers. Now, Karen is going to talk about some of the food safety concerns with maple syrup specifically. Okay. All right. So when collecting maple syrup, it can be done with a variety of food safe products, including things like the buckets, type of buckets to use, metal or food, should be food grade plastic. Bags, which you see on the bottom, on the far right, those are Those are definitely food grade, and they're interesting new route to take for collecting sap. And they are commonly used. So actually, a coworker of ours that does that, that way, he then collects the sap in that bag, and he's able to store it in his freezer until he's able to have time to actually cook it down to maple syrup. So that works for him, and it is a food grade and pretty much affordable. So that's a way, good system to start with as well. Larger commercial operations use tubing that pipes, that pipes the sap into a centralized drum, or they actually use a vacuum. This is a food grade tubing that is sold for sap collection purposes only. There's different ways to use that. But those are a closed system. Metal spiles are used to tap the trees, and then sap drips into the food grade buckets, which are those plastic ones at the top. There are some older ones that were used or a little As long as things aren't cooked in there or heated in there, that should work fine as well. The spires for tubing are replaced annually, so they're just plastic and that helps keeps it in a closed system. So sometimes when you're selling well, when you're selling syrup, it's about the color and the grade. So grading syrup really only matters if you choose to be a commercial producer. So what determines the best grade of syrup? Well, definitely the color plays a big part in that. So the time of collection is significant in the lightness and or the darkness of the syrup because of the strength of the sugar that's in there. Early season sap contains a bit more sugar, and so it takes less amount of sap to create that syrup. So the goal is to start collecting your sap as soon as the conditions are determined to be just right for sap to flow. And that's freezing at night and thawing in the daytime. So creating the sweet sap actually begins in the fall when the leaves the trees lose their leaves, and the tree begins to create the sugar. The top picture is a small jar of syrup made early in the season. We have yet to ever get it that light, but we did have some really light stuff last year because we were able to catch it early. The picture in the bottom is a maple syrup grading scale, so it does go by the color. These are a set of jars created to match the various grades of syrup that are produced. So clarity of the syrup comes from careful straining of the syrup through each process or every time you move that sap, we strain often. Ten gallons of sap will yield about a quart of syrup. So 40 gallons of sap is approximately is the average of what it takes to make a gallon of syrup. That can change as season and progresses, and from year to year, at times, it changes as well. We will be sharing those resources with you following the class on grading your maple syrup. So, there are a variety of ways to store maple syrup. As stated earlier, it is important to always use food grade containers. A classic way to store your maple syrup is in a glass container. And we just use a regular canning jar. This enables the true color to come through, and it actually helps sell that and with grading of your syrup. And it assists in pricing because it's all about the color at that point. Tin containers or plastic containers pictured on the right are also very popular. Tin seals with the heat, like when you're sealing with plastic containers, plastic, however, breathes. So basic plastic can breathe, and it is important to make sure that your syrup has reached a 219 degrees to become syrup. That is what indicates that syrup it is the syrup. That means that the sugar content is thick enough to keep it on a shelf stable on a shelf as a shelf stable item. In the lid of each of these containers, there's a plastic shield, and that seals that rim of the container, therefore, sealing the lid to the container. So it does have an airtight seal on it. Even though maple syrup is heavy in sugar, it is important to refrigerate after opening to prevent any bacterial growth. So many people choose to preserve or store your syrup in home canning jars. As pictured here, the following is the process to preserve a syrup using canning jars. Use a glass jar for home canning with a two piece lid. Prior to adding syrup, all jars are washed, rinsed, and sanitized in a hot water bath or a steam bath for 10 minutes. I do believe you can probably sanitize and wash and sanitize in a dishwasher as well, so it's heat treated. To preserve your maple syrup, it is brought to a temperature of 180 degrees for 10 minutes. This prevents bacterial mold growth. Heating to a higher temperature can darken that syrup. So this is a separate time or a separate temperature than the 219 degrees that you have reached to make it syrup originally when you are producing it. The syrup is then ready to be poured into hot containers and the rim is wiped clean. After applying the two piece lid, we lay the jar on its side for a few minutes. That's the only time in preserving anything that you do that. Then it is set upright and it will seal from the heat inside that jar. This is once again the only time that it is recommended to put a jar on its side with a home preserving process. The method can also be applied to other jar or other glass jars and lids used to packaging maple syrup. The reason is because if you put it in a water bath to seal it properly, it would actually darken the syrup a little bit more. There goes of what you might have had as a light syrup. That is why it's the only time we do that. So, yeah, it could darken syrup, and you want to make sure that you have as light as possible because that's what the grade is they're looking for. Here are food grade buckets that are used at times for longer term storage or to sell in larger quantities. So you're going to sell to a packager maybe. After the syrup is finished, pour it into a food grade container and let it cool, then cover with a food grade lid. Then store your bucket of syrup in the freezer or sell it to a packager. Freezing syrup is a good option in instances of lower quantities produced. Once removed from the freezer, it can be packaged, as mentioned above or the slide before. Stainless steel barrels are also a good option for producers that can create or create large volumes of syrup. They store them in the barrel until they're needed to be packaged or the syrup is bottled and ready for selling. Stainless steel barrels can be reused year after year once they're washed, rinsed and sanitized. So that's the benefit. They're expensive at first, but that is the benefit that you can have using a stainless steel barrel. On the right is a bottling that allows the syrup to remain constant temperature while they bottle at multiple containers at a time. So it can be a good marketing technique to provide consumers with suggested ways to use syrup, providing recipes even with a creative food safe packaging. Highlight users of maple syrup, other than the obvious topping on pancakes and waffles. So for example, I put it on my hand when I bake it or things like that. You could actually put it in maple or oatmeal, glazed some glaze squash, things, carrots or chicken. I haven't tried it on chicken, but I've got a couple of recipes for that and I will try it on chicken. It is very good on ice cream or make maple syrup fritters apple fritters. Providing recipes enhances your product's value so you can give them ideas on what they can do with that. But we often get asked if it can be used to make maple sugar candies to sell or maple syrup candied popcorn. And the answer is yes, it can, but that makes it a cottage food. So that item would have to be sold as a cottage food. Now we're going to go back to Kara and learn more about honey. All right. Thank you. I am not an apiarist so those of you joining here probably know a lot more about that process than me. What I'm going to talk to you about today again, are packaging, storing, and selling honey. Again, just some considerations for honey. For the safety of honey is making sure you're washing your hands, containing hair, you're wearing clean clothing, and using clean and sanitized food grade containers when you are collecting honey. As you know, honey processing is a very sticky business, so hands and aprons become dirty and sticky easily, and we need to wash them to get that off. Don't be tempted to lick your fingers during the process and make sure that you're taking measures to clean off equipment and utensils when necessary. One thing you might want to do that you have is to have a wash bucket available so that you can remove honey and wash or change your aprons as needed. Honey is an acidic product. I don't know if you know that. Actually, it can be more acidic than tomatoes, for example. The average pH is 3.9. It can range from 3.2 to 4.3, but the average is about 3.9. But because of that high acidity, it is recommended that you're only to use stainless steel, ceramic coated, enameled, anodized, and then glass containers. What you don't want to use is aluminum, galvanized pans, brass, or copper. For collecting and packaging and processing all of that. Another critical factor when you're processing honey is its moisture level. A standard when you're testing honey is that it's 17 to 18% water. According to USDA, it can have up to 18.6% moisture and it's not a problem. Also if it's lower in moisture, so it can go down to 15-16%. But if there's more than that 18.6% moisture, it can ferment. There's something that honey collectors use called a refractometer and this can read different levels and beekeepers should check that the refractometer is for honey and it reads in the right moisture range. If there is uncapped honey that is being harvested, there is such a thing as a shake test. You shake the frame and if no honey is dislodged, then it should be good to harvest. Honey also is considered a term called hydroscopic. What that means is it draws in moisture. Because it is hydroscopic, it draws in moisture. It's important to store honey in a clean, airtight container. If it's airtight, you're not going to have access to the moisture in the environment. Also, it's important that you never add water or any moisture to honey as this would create an environment for mold and yeast growth and lead to fermentation. Honey then can become contaminated also and allows pathogens to grow. This can also be very applicable. It's important to remember this if you are trying to flavor honey, which we're going to talk about in a little bit, it's really only allowed to use dry ingredients. Now, many facilities will not allow other processors to use their same equipment. If they do, it is first rinsed to prevent honey bee pathogens from spreading, as you are all well aware, I'm sure, of the risk of diseases that can be transferred from hive to hive. One other safe honey consideration is that you never place frames that are from honey houses on the ground. There's a lot of bacteria in the soil, including the bacteria that produces the botulinum toxin, which we're going to talk about briefly here. In a minute. Let's just talk about packaging and storing. Honey is often stored in a plastic bucket or a stainless steel bottling tank. That tank can have a gate or opening towards the bottom. The picture here on the right is actually from MSU's honey processing facility. It's a really nice system that they use and the honey is extracted to fill the bottles from a nozzle here on the bottom. The nozzle is on the bottom, which makes sense, but also bits of beeswax and other impurities loped to the top so that honey is then separated from those impurities. Now, after setting, honey is ready to be bottled. There's a lot more steps involved with making maple syrup. Really with honey, we have to make sure it's ready, that the moisture level is ready. So it has set and it's separated out, that honey is ready to be bottled. Much like syrup, bottling options range from a food grade glass jar and also a food grade plastic bottle. We're not using so much the tin, but plastic and glass. Your containers must be sanitized and airtight to prevent that bacterial contamination. Not so much for the safety of the preserving it, but to prevent that bacterial contamination and also to ward off the moisture in the air. Because it is important that our containers are also dry. So when we sanitize them, whether we're using heat or boiling it in water, for example, we want to make sure that that is all evaporated because additional moisture, again, can lead to fermentation of your honey. Now, larger scale operations may also store honey in food grade plastic or stainless steel bottling or settling tanks. That is an option, but many of us are not at that level or many of you all. Honey is stored at room temperature. You don't need to freeze it, you don't need to can it to preserve it. While it will last longer than a year when it's stored in an airtight container without contamination, it is recommended to use within a year. The longer you store it, honey can become cloudy or crystallized or solidified. Now that's not really necessarily a safety concern. It can be heated to clarify or melt it. Um, but what is recommended if you did collect a large amount is that it is preferred to use honey within a four year time span, and that is to maintain the safety and quality of it. What is recommended is if you're not using it within four years, consider about how you might be able to sell your honey, maybe wholesaling it if you're not able to package or retail it yourself. Just some terms I wanted to go over. One is pasteurized honey. It's really, in reality, uncommon in the United States. We hear sometimes this term pasteurized, so I just wanted to clarify with you what that means. Pasteurized honey is treated in a registered pasteurizing plant. Probably most of you aren't using that. But they are applying high heat to destroy these sugar tolerant yeasts. Now, in heating, it also can destroy some of the nutritional properties. Now, pasteurization, one of the benefits to that is it can extend a honey's shelf life and then also make it nice and smooth. It is filtered so that can also remove impurities like air bubbles so that it remains a clearer liquid for a longer time. With unpasteurized honey, which is really what most of us are using, is only slightly heated during processing, which helps the honey to retain many of its nutritional properties. In recent years, there's been a growing interest in unpasteurized honey driven by possible health benefits. Then there's also something called raw honey. That's not exactly the same as unpasteurized honey. Raw honey is unpasteurized, but there's actually no definition of raw honey. However, the main difference is that raw honey is kept in its natural state with no heat, so it can contain naturally occurring bee pollen. That's why some people want to purchase honey for that bee pollen. Terms like raw, local, natural, pure, and unfiltered are actually terms that are not regulated in Michigan. There's actually no official definition. It is up to you to ensure that your product and its handling is appropriate to the use of these terms. Okay. Now, sometimes you'll find honey and maybe you are in this group that claims that it's organic. Now, if that is a claim, it must be certified organic. That is a regulated term. If you're not certified organic, you can't make any organic claim on the principal display panel or use that organic seal anywhere on the package. If you use the term organic on the seal and you're not certified as organic, you can be fined. That is something that you will have to seek out if you want to claim. All right. We're also just going to talk about a few other forms of honey and how it might be packaged or sold. One is the liquid honey, which is right smack in the middle of the slide. That is the common form of honey. Now liquid honey is honey that is free from the comb. Now, it can crystallize over time and many beekeepers will note that when that happens, it is gently warmed to re liquify it. I've had friends that have said just put it on even as shelves to get to the direct sunlight and that'll but there's also partially crystallized honey, which is in the top left picture of that slide. Now that's a mixture of liquid honey and crystallized honey. You probably have experienced this if you've had honey in your pantry for some time, you'll notice that it does start to crystallize and that will eventually happen to all liquid honey and does not affect the quality of the honey. So raw and unpasteurized honey will in most cases turn to a crystallized state, whereas your pasteurized honey may last longer. Then we have comb honey, that's on the top middle picture. That is sometimes desirable from people, and it's pretty neat to see that and to have access to that. But that is actually honey that is contained in the honey bees wax comb and it makes really a beautiful presentation. That comb is actually edible. Most people say, why would you eat that? But some people like to chew on it or something, and it's used also to make other products. Then there's the chunk honey, which is the picture on the far right and that's just basically liquid honey. It does have a chunk of that honeycomb added to the jar. Then lastly, there's whipped honey, that's in your bottom left picture. This is honey that has been deliberately crystallized so that it can be easily spread. It is really very creamy and spreadable at this point. Some people really prefer this whipped honey. Sometimes it's added to smoothies, it's mixed into dressings, spread on toast. Those are some of the popular uses for whipped honey. Another name for whipped honey is creamed honey or spun honey or churned honey. It's given a few different names. I have learned that this is not always easy to get the whipped honey in a form that's desirable. The main food safety concern with honey is the potential to cause infant botulism. So I just wanted to make this said that we don't want to give honey to infants. Infants have an immature gastrointestinal tract and those spores that are found in the honey can produce this toxin that is affecting the infant. Their GI systems are really too immature to prevent this toxin from developing and that can end up poisoning the infant. Once again, never give an infant honey under age one. Now, Karen and I both mentioned maybe flavored maple syrup or infused honey. There's a growing interest in adding ingredients to the honey or honey products and our maple syrup. You've probably heard of honey infused with lavender or hot honey, or a coffee flavored, or a coffee infused maple syrup. So if you are interested in selling your products, first, we want you to make sure that your added ingredient is legal. We will be sharing some resources with you in a little bit on how to contact your MDARD inspector, so you can check before you begin to sell that makes sure that your infusion is a legal product. Also, infused or flavored honey or maple syrup becomes a cottage food. So that means is you can sell $15,001 worth of pure honey And then also you can make hot honey as long as it's legal, and you can sell $25,000 worth of hot honey as a cottage cottage food product. So that would be $37,000 in one that you can sell from those two products. Um So there are some select dry ingredients that can be added. We've said they become a cottage food product. There's a lot of different rules with the cottage food law. So if you're doing this, we would encourage you and we will share some resources for you to take our cottage food law class because there's some different guidelines. There also are a majority of ingredients that will require what's called a licensed facility, an MDARD license, and a process authority review. Now that runs about $250 a product. MDARD is who you're going to be working with to get some more of that information. Also, if you have a health claim, then it becomes classified differently and definitely needs a license. If you get approval to sell flavored syrup or honey, you must follow additional labeling requirements, and then also those cottage food guidelines, which include a list of ingredients on the label. You can't just infuse something and call it and not declare the ingredients. These are some common infusions that we have mentioned that do fall under the excuse me, the Cottage Food law. Some examples are cinnamon spice or a habanero spice. You can dehydrate your own habaneros for example, grind them up and use them to infuse into hot honey if you wanted to. But anything that does need water, again, we will need that process authority review, a food license, and the MDARD license. Some examples are lavender, lemon and ginger, garlic, cranberry and orange and white pine. This is a number we'll be sharing with you in the follow up email, but it is the number you'll need to call to eventually get access to talking to your MDARD inspector. Again, you need this to find out if you are infusing or flavoring your maple syrup or honey. Okay. Now, here's some examples of what the labels. If you're selling your maple syrup or selling your honey, this is what they should look like. This statement does have to be included, where it's processed in a facility that's not been inspected by the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. Now, we often refer to them as MDARD in our presentation, but you have to spell it out. And then also if you do notice there is the word facility here. In a cottage food product, it's a similar statement, but it's a kitchen, right? That statement does have to be an 11 point font, and it also has to be written in a color that provides a clear contrast to the background. It can also be handwritten as long as it is clearly legible and it's written with durable or permanent ink, and it's at least an eighth of an inch tall. I do want to bring to your attention also a couple of examples here for maple syrup and honey. Now, what you do have to include, as you can see on the orange example on your slide, is that it has to have the name of the product and the address of the owner. Who packaged it? It's probably the same one that processed it. There are times when you might sell it to somebody, like a wholesaler who then packages it and sells it, and who's ever packaging it has to be on there. So for both of these, MI Maple Syrup is listed here. It has that statement. It is called maple syrup and the name, so it doesn't have the ingredient listed on it. And then the net weight is listed as 16 ounces, which is one pint, and it has the milliliter content. Um and then honey has the ingredients listed here under honey. It's called Spartan sweet. Honey is not in the common name, so it would have to be declared as such in the ingredient statement. Again, if you are adding ingredients, even if syrup is in the name of the product, if it's been infused, it becomes a cottage food and you do have to list maple syrup as well as your infused ingredients. Um Also, I wanted to note that maple syrup is listed in ounces and milliliters, but honey is listed in ounces and grams. That is different for the two. Then the address on the label, again, should be the address of the last person who packaged it. I think I already mentioned that. They are the responsible party. Okay. So these are some of the gatekeeping resources I'll be sharing with you. MSU Extension has a wealth of knowledge. We have some wonderful experts that are here to educate and to help troubleshoot with you. So these are a lot of the resources that I will be sharing with you, and I'm going to let Karen go. Thank you. Okay. We have also resources for maple syrup. So we have them listed there. There's some that are local, some are USDA grading things. We will also be sending you this maple syrup fact sheet. So Kara will send that out as well. These will help you with a maple syrup business to be successful. So definitely these links will be sent as well with any of that information. And we also want to let you know that we do have Product Center, which actually could help you with the business part of your program or your business, so they can help bring you to the next level. They are I do believe if you find them online, we will send that link, but I think it costs $100 for five years worth of working with you. And they will take you from the bottom to the top, and they can actually save you some money by telling you what you need to do, you know, how to follow the process, all of those kind of things. So it's a very good good reference that you will get the links to as well. So Product Center is definitely something that you might need to be interested in. So if you plan on growing your business, And then we have a kind of new reference guide. It's called the Selling Food in Michigan Quick Reference Guide. It's a tool for food entrepreneurs who want to sell food as a hobby under Michigan Cottage Food Law or want to launch a new food product for retail or wholesale market. It is a resource of information geared towards specific food products, business startup materials, and regulatory agency information. And this guide can be found under the MSU Product Center website or by scanning that QR code, it can take you to the screen for that information. And we have regular trainings for Michigan Cottage Food Law, if you're interested in that. So we talked about the guidelines and the differences and the exemptions under these guidelines for selling the differences between honey and maple syrup and Cottage Food Law. To find out more, we encourage you to attend a class. Information will be emailed on the next classes that are available for this event. So we do have one on 3-5 next Wednesday. We have one on 3-18 as well, and I do believe the The link can go in the chat. We'll see if we can do that as well. Or you can actually look under our Safe Food and Water pages where our events, they should all be listed there. We also have an online Michigan Cottage Food law course. So you can take this at it's a D2L course. It actually you can go back to it and refer it to it for information. If you forgot something, you have a little question. We are going to it'll be under construction a little bit, but you can still access it at this point. And you once again, get a certificate after you go through all of the information that's there. So in the certificate, just as to verify that you attended a class that was food safe, how to display, how to sell, how to package, all those kind of things. So it's about food safety with the Cottage food law at that point. And we have a new program. This new program can help you help guide entrepreneurs that would like to start a licensed business or you currently have a cottage food business, we would like to expand it to a licensed facility. It provides information to help you know what to ask your MDR inspector so that they can better help you determine what license you will need for your business so you can expand. And this information will be sent out to you after this program as well. We have a link for the new classes, which we just added one for March, I believe. So I off top of my head, I don't remember what date we picked, but they're very popular. So it's literally moving beyond a cottage food if you want to do we have on March 5? I don't know if I think we do. Okay. Then we have Our serving up food safety. So that is our Monday program that is actually just a half hour long. So you can join us on Mondays. We do give a little presentation, but it's geared towards, like, a lunch and learn, and you can register through either calling the hotline, which is the 877-643-9882 number or scanning that QR code, and we can send you those links as well. We have different topics, and you can also ask any question about food safety that you would like to ask at that point in time, and we can help you through that. So, do we have questions? There is one question I saw in the chat. It applies to maple syrup. When you hot package the syrup, will the volume reduce in the bottle after it cools? They're just trying to determine how full to fill the bottle. Actually, it does. And by the time we get done thinning or, you know, like straining things and stuff, it actually is a little bit thinner. So it is, a heat expands everything, so it does, you would have a little bit less in there, but you can fill it up to I think we do like within a half inch to a quarter inch of the top rim. So definitely you definitely need to you can fill it that that much. So Okay. Somebody else wants to confirm there is no Michigan tax on food. There's there's no tax on honey or maple syrup sales? No. Just like there is with groceries. Right. But if you're selling cottage food, it's there it is taxed, and I think that they kind of you're tax on restaurant, you know, type of food. And so I think that's why that it falls into that category. Yeah. And somebody also wants to know where can you find the chlorine test strips? You can find them at your wholesale provider. I know in my area that's Gordon's, sometimes you have to ask them for that upfront if they don't if you don't see it. You can probably order that online as well. I don't know that you can find it in any grocer. It's probably not an option unless you're in a large city and maybe they have that, but Okay. Okay. That is all of the questions I see now. We want to thank everybody for attending. If you have any other questions, you can email us or send them to ask an expert or anything like that, and we'll see what we can do to answer them.