Zero to farmers market.

Everything downstream depends on three recipes being genuinely worth a stranger's $9. This phase is legal to do at home because nothing is being sold yet.

• Lock Original, Old Bay, and Buffalo. Write each recipe down by weight, not "a splash" — batch consistency starts here and the licensing process will require a documented recipe anyway.
• Run blind taste tests. Friends, family, the neighbors. Serve each OK flavor against Heinz on identical fries. The bar: at least half the room picks OK without knowing which is which.
• Build a cost sheet per bottle. Tomatoes, vinegar, spices, bottle, cap, label. If a 10 oz bottle costs more than ~$3.50 to make at small scale, revisit the recipe or the sourcing before going further.
• Check the pH. A $15 pH meter now saves real money later — ketchup needs to sit safely below 4.6 (commercial ketchup runs around 3.9). This number decides the entire licensing path in Phase 1.

• Form the LLC. Maryland filing is about $100 online; get the free EIN from the IRS the same afternoon. "Olivia's Ketchup LLC" makes the bank account, insurance, and market applications possible.
• Get the recipe blessed by a Process Authority. A food-science lab (University of Maryland Extension can point the way, or NC State's widely used service) reviews the recipe and issues a scheduled process letter — the document that says this ketchup is safe to make and sell. Roughly $100–300 per recipe; start with Original only.
• Take Better Process Control School. An online FDA-recognized certification course (~$400) required for whoever supervises acidified food production. One of you takes it; it doesn't expire.
• Rent a shared commercial kitchen. Baltimore has several licensed commissary kitchens (~$25–40/hour). This becomes the legal production site, and gets the operation a Maryland food processing license through the state health department.
• Product liability insurance. ~$500–700/year. Farmers markets require proof of it before granting a stall.

Escape hatch if this drags: a refrigerated "fresh ketchup" sold from a cooler dodges some of the acidified-foods process, and a co-packer can make the recipe in their licensed facility for a per-unit fee. Both are legitimate v1s. Verify current requirements with the Maryland Department of Health before committing to any path — rules change and this plan is a map, not legal advice.

Licensing involves a lot of waiting. That's when the brand work happens — and the brand already exists: OK, the Maryland-tile mosaic, the story of a woman who put ketchup on everything until her husband gave up and built her a company.

• Design the label around the OK medallion from the website. FDA labeling rules require: product name, net weight, full ingredient list in descending order, allergen statement, and the business name and address. Get the label reviewed when the process authority reviews the recipe.
• Source bottles. 10 oz glass with a plastisol-lined cap (needed for a proper heat seal). At small quantities expect $1–1.50 per bottle+cap; order 300 for the pilot.
• Print labels short-run (250–500) rather than committing to thousands — the recipe, the copy, or the design will change after real customers react. ~$0.40–0.60 each at this scale.
• Batch codes on every bottle. A sharpied date works at first. If anything ever goes wrong, this is how a batch gets recalled instead of a business.

One long day (realistically two) in the shared kitchen. The goal is not volume — it's proving the recipe scales from a saucepan to a stockpot without losing what made it win the blind tests.

• Target: 150–250 bottles of Original. Small enough to sell through in a few market days, big enough to learn real unit economics.
• Log everything: pH of every batch, fill temperatures, times. The scheduled process letter dictates the numbers; the log proves they were hit.
• Re-run the taste test against the home-kitchen version. Scaled-up recipes drift — catch it now, not at the market.
• True up the cost sheet. Kitchen hours, ingredients at real quantities, packaging. This sets the market price: at ~$2.50–3.50 landed cost, $8–10 a bottle is the healthy range.

• Apply to one or two markets, not five. The 32nd Street Farmers Market in Waverly (year-round, every Saturday) and the Baltimore Farmers' Market & Bazaar under the JFX are the natural targets. Applications typically want the license, insurance certificate, and product photos.
• Get the temporary food service license from Baltimore City's health department for sampling — because sampling is the entire sales strategy. Nobody buys a $9 ketchup they haven't tasted; almost everybody buys one they have. Crinkle-cut fries or pretzel sticks as the vehicle.
• Booth kit: tent with weights, table, tablecloth, a big OK medallion banner, cooler, sample cups, cash box, Square reader. ~$500 once, lasts years.
• Launch goal: 40 bottles sold on day one. That's ~$350 gross and — more importantly — 40 households with OK on the fridge door.
• The metric that matters is market day #2: how many faces come back. Repeat customers, not day-one sales, decide whether Old Bay and Buffalo go into production.

• Old Bay and Buffalo go to the process authority once Original proves repeat demand — each new flavor is a ~$300 decision, not a leap of faith.
• Two or three local counters: a burger spot, a breakfast place, a bottle shop that likes Maryland-made things. Wholesale at market before wholesale at scale.
• Online orders through this site, shipping within Maryland first.
• Co-packer conversation only when Olivia is spending more Saturdays stirring than selling. The brand is the business; the stockpot doesn't have to be.