If you have to buy the permit, definitely use it to the best of your ability. Indiana/Tippecanoe County also have that type of rules, but our cost is $25 per year, and they have to see you process some of the items the first few times (just to make sure that you're doing it correctly).

Here, if you don't CUT it, you can sample it. I usually use the smallest tomatoes for samples. Otherwise, my family is forever eating some of the less perfect and we give tastes to some of our friends. Not exactly sampling, since they are our friends/family. When we do this, we explain to the other people that we can't give out samples unless we have all these rules and we have to adhere to them.

the hand washing station can be as simple as a large water cooler with a toggle handle (not push in) with super warm water, and a dish pan to collect the waste water. Then a roll of paper towels (keep them in a ziploc bag until you need them). You will need to wash the knife EVERY time you need to use it and AIR DRY it (don't towel it).

If you only wanting to sell tomatoes, around here you would only need 1 90-day permit, we don't have that long of season.

Good luck with your decision, I've thought about it for years.

Marla

The guy next to me at market gives samples but never calls them that to get around the permit stuff. They talk to the customer about the item and say 'would you like to try some?' They never use the word sample and don't let anyone else say they are sampling. They are simply letting people try watermelon or whatever.

Some places don't have the restrictions that other places do. My old market did, but the places that we're set up now, don't.

One thing I have found out over my years of sampling, make sure to wash the exterior off with some type of disinfecting wipe before cutting (or good clean/clear water). I have a chemo patient that asked about disinfecting the outside, and at that time, I had only been wiping it off with a wet wipe. She told me that with her chemo, she needed to disinfect anything before cutting. After that, instead of buying the cheap wet wipes, I spent a little more to buy the disinfecting ones for my samples. No sense in getting someone possibly sick from cutting the samples. Never had a problem, all this was before the health department decided to enforce the sanitation rules. Then I stopped, didn't want the hassle, plus I already had my customers trained that MY stuff was good (basically sold itself, by being in my stand, boasting no, true).

Marla