South Dakota Cottage Food Law

South Dakota's cottage food law sets no statewide revenue cap and no state permit or registration is required. The licensing exemption applies only when the food is sold in the seller's physical presence at the seller's primary residence, a farmer's market, a roadside stand, or another temporary sale venue, and the seller, or a person residing at the seller's primary residence, personally delivers the food to the buyer at the completion of the sale (SDCL 34-18-38). Shipping, mail order, consignment, and sales through stores or restaurants fall outside the exemption, and a sale completed online rather than in person does not meet the physical-presence condition.

Watch for: The exemption is tied to in-person sales: the seller must be physically present at the home, a farmer's market, a roadside stand, or another temporary venue and personally hand over the food, so shipping and online-only sales are not covered. Canned goods and the refrigerated or frozen foods added in 2022 (non-heat-processed fermented foods, kuchen, soft pies, cheesecake, cream- or custard-filled baked goods, sauces and pesto, frozen fruit and produce) require food safety training every five years. Two 2025 bills, HB 1179 (labeling and sales changes) and HB 1187 (home-processed poultry and pork), were deferred to the 41st legislative day in committee and did not become law.

Annual revenue cap

No cap

Permit / registration

Not required

Kitchen inspection

Not required

Food handler training

Not required

Acidified foods

Permitted (pH test)

Interstate shipping

In-state only

Where you can sell

The licensing exemption applies only when the food is sold in the seller's physical presence at the seller's primary residence, a farmer's market, a roadside stand, or another temporary sale venue, and the seller, or a person residing at the seller's primary residence, personally delivers the food to the buyer at the completion of the sale (SDCL 34-18-38). Shipping, mail order, consignment, and sales through stores or restaurants fall outside the exemption, and a sale completed online rather than in person does not meet the physical-presence condition.

Direct (in-person)
Farmers markets

What's required before your first sale

No license, license fee, registration, or inspection when the SDCL 34-18-37 label and 34-18-38 sales conditions are met. Food safety training approved by the department, available online and repeated every five years, is required to sell canned goods (§ 34-18-36) and the refrigerated or frozen foods allowed by § 34-18-36.1. For canned goods only, a producer may instead keep written verification of each recipe from a third-party processing authority. No canned good may be sold unless its pH is 4.6 or less or its water activity is .85 or less.

Allowed and excluded foods

Permitted under cottage food

baked goods prepared at a residence (SDCL 34-18-35(3))
other non-temperature-controlled food prepared at a residence (§ 34-18-35(1))
home-processed canned goods with a pH of 4.6 or less or a water activity of .85 or less, with food safety training or processing-authority recipe verification (§ 34-18-36)
with food safety training: non-heat-processed fermented foods kept at or below 41°F (§ 34-18-36.1(1))
with food safety training: kuchen and baked goods that require time and temperature control, including soft pies, cheesecake, and baked goods with a custard or cream filling, plus sauces and pesto that require time and temperature control, kept at or below 41°F (§ 34-18-36.1(2))
with food safety training: home-processed frozen fruit and produce kept at or below 0°F (§ 34-18-36.1(3))

Excluded from cottage food

canned goods with a pH above 4.6 and a water activity above .85 (§ 34-18-36)
temperature-controlled foods not listed in § 34-18-36.1, such as meat and poultry

Label requirements

Name of the product
Name of the producer
Physical address of production
Mailing address of the producer
Telephone number of the producer
Date the product was made or processed
Ingredients
For food sold under SDCL 34-18-36.1 (refrigerated or frozen foods): a directive to keep refrigerated or frozen
Verbatim disclaimer required by SDCL 34-18-37(9): "This product was not produced in a commercial kitchen. It has been home-processed in a kitchen that may also process common food allergens such as tree nuts, peanuts, eggs, soy, wheat, milk, fish, and crustacean shellfish."

How Ardent Seller helps

Generate your South Dakota disclosure label in one click

Ardent Seller assembles a print-ready cottage food label for South Dakota from data you already track — the state's required disclosure statement rendered verbatim (and sized to meet the state's minimum type size where one applies), your operator info, ingredients in descending order by weight, the federal "Contains:" allergen line, net weight, and lot code. A validation checklist flags anything South Dakota requires that's missing before you print. Included on every plan.

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