Cottage food laws are state-level rules that let individuals make certain non-hazardous foods in their home kitchen and sell them without a commercial kitchen or a food processor's license. They are what make home baking, jam, candy, and dry-mix businesses legal — within limits that every operator has to know.
Those limits vary widely by state and typically cover three things: which foods qualify (generally low-risk items below a water-activity or pH threshold), how much you can sell (a gross revenue cap ranging from a few thousand dollars to no cap at all), and how products must be labeled (often a specific home-kitchen disclaimer, allergen statement, and sometimes a lot code). Selling across state lines is usually outside cottage food law entirely.
Compliance is an ongoing discipline — tracking gross sales against the cap, labeling correctly, and keeping batch records for traceability — and it is genuinely state-specific. Ardent Seller maintains a per-state cottage food reference, but the controlling source is always your own state's current regulation.
Related terms
Water Activity
A measure (from 0 to 1) of the unbound water available in a food to support microbial growth — a key threshold in cottage food law.
Traceability
The ability to trace a finished product back to its source ingredients, production run, and batch numbers. Critical for food safety, quality control, and regulatory compliance.
Batch/Lot Number
A unique identifier assigned to a production run or group of items produced together. Enables traceability from raw ingredients to finished products for quality control and compliance.
Schedule C
An IRS tax form (Schedule C - Profit or Loss from Business) used by sole proprietors. Ardent Seller can categorize expenses and generate reports aligned with Schedule C line items.