My sister ran into this problem in her little town. Someone got a bad fish fry at a local church and the health department shut down ALL home-made food sales. This pinched the church events, school events, sports events, everything!! ALL food at public events had to be prepared in a licensed certified kitchen.
Anyway back to your question.
Call your local health department, or you should have an advisor at the superintendent level (your principal's boss).
Just use common sense in bake sales. If it looks questionable, don't sell it. A few times I received a plate of stuff that got squished on the bus to school. I smiled. Said "thank you SO much" and when they weren't looking, I deep sixed' it.
Don't sell items that need refrigeration. Our biggest sellers were the quick breads (banana bread, pumpkin bread, etc), rice krispy bars, choc chip cookies. We always get an over abundance of chocolate stuff (Brownies, etc) - try and encourage the breads.
We also sold popcorn (high profit!) and pop.
(Our school is a polling place - we made $$$ at our bake sale during the Bush/Gore election!!)
We had the older kids take turns staffing the bake sale table during their recess. They loved it!
Has anyone run into a wall on bake sales in Calif because items are homemade? Our principal says that he thinks only "store bought" items can be sold (UGH!!). Where can I find out the truth?
Thanks!
Karen
