Jane Janovsky makes and markets artisanal jams, made primarily from fruit she harvests from local farms in the Pioneer Valley. She’s certified by the state as a safe food handler, pays her town a fee each year in order to be permitted to cook her jams in her commercially certified home kitchen, and then has to pay fees and fill out forms for each town where she wants to participate in an event or market. With no uniform certification process from town-to-town, and no reciprocity or blanket approval available for small scale processors, the paperwork and fees are very burdensome for businesspeople like Jane.
