regulations around selling fruit veg & eggs at the gate

blowin · regulations around selling fruit veg & eggs at the gate

I can't believe there aren't any regulations which we will , of course , obey to the letter , but I have no idea what they might be .
Can anyone enlighten me please ?
NB : in the Republic . Thanks .

wayland

I await with all ears! I have not yet found any such rules.

blowin

Someone who sells sorry used to sell a few eggs from the back door told me that it is ( ? now ? ) illegal to advertise them on a small sign at the end of her burreen ( sp ?) / drive .
As a matter of interest , how many days old would you expect said eggs to be ( a/normally , and b/ max acceptable to you ) ?

Camile

I think that if you want to sell them as fresh eggs, it's a maximum of 5 days ...

I don't know if it's a regulation but I read somewhere that it's the definition of fresh eggs ..

do you have hens yourself Blowin ?

gai

I sell eggs and have a sign at the yard gate. The first sign I put up read "Free range eggs for sale", I knew better than to put up one reading "Organic" as we have no certification. The sign was up for 4 days when I had a visit from a lady from the agriculture. She saw the sign on her way to work and had called in to advise me. Apparantly you also need certification to put "Free range" on your sign but I could change it to "Fresh eggs for sale" and everything would be OK. She was a very nice lady, contrary to all reports I had heard from others who had had unexpected visits from the agriculture. She stayed chatting for a couple of hours and learned how to make lemon curd as I was in the process of making a batch when she arrived. That was 2 years ago and I've sold eggs ever since with no visits. Mine never last more than a couple of days before selling so they are always fresh, sometimes they get lifted straight from under the hens bum, into a box and away.
I can't advise you on fruit or veg but I would assume the rules are fairly relaxed on these as well. Most of my neighbours sell veg at the gate and have fairly permanant signs out. Obviously you shouldn't state "Organic" on your sign if you're not certified but most customers will want to chat about your product anyway (my new customers always want to see the hens) and this is where you can get across your almost organic status and natural growing methods.

Rebecca

Last year I rang the ministry to ask this question. They were really friendly and very helpful. They said I could put up a sign, no problem and sell my eggs. You need to register if you have 50 or more chucks, as far as I recall, perhaps thats changed. I had a long chat with the guy on the phone as he was originally from where we are living now, and wanted to know exactly where we were (to buy eggs next time he was home!).

He also gave me the mobile no. of the head poultry man, to double check, and he again said there was no problem selling from the gate. I think there was something about not bringing buyers onto the farm, but not sure about that!

I sold only the freshest same day or day old eggs, and kept any a few days old for ourselves.