Section
Starting, running, and growing a home-based food business: what you can sell, labels, packaging, food safety, and the rules that shape it all.
Plain sourdough sits on almost every state's allowed list, which is the easy part. The hard parts are the bake-day schedule, an oven that caps your revenue, an ingredient statement that has to name the starter, and a bag that softens the crust before the market opens.
· 10 min read
From the first read of your state's rules to your first market Saturday, in eight steps: choosing products that qualify, registration and training, labels, pricing, sales channels, bookkeeping, and a realistic plan for the first 90 days.
· 13 min read
Cottage food is a legal category, not a cooking style: food made in a home kitchen, sold directly to the person who eats it, and in most states limited to foods that stay safe at room temperature. Here is where that line comes from, how states move it, and what falls outside it almost everywhere.
· 9 min read
Cottage food laws disagree about almost everything except the label. Here are the six elements nearly every state asks for, the exact disclaimer wording six states use, and how to build a label that survives a refrigerator and still reads as a brand.
· 10 min read
A bag or box has three jobs: keep the product safe and fresh, carry the label your state requires, and sell it from three feet away. Here is how to choose packaging by product type, what a unit really costs, and which states require sealed, labeled packages before you can sell.
· 12 min read
You can probably make twenty things well. A market needs three or four you can make every week, that hold up on a folding table, that your state allows, and that nobody else in the tent row is already selling. Here is a set of filters for getting from twenty to four.
· 11 min read
A cottage food exemption lets you cook at home because what you sell is low-risk and sold face to face. Here are the five kinds of kitchen a small food business can legally use, what each one costs and lets you sell, and the signals that you have outgrown the one you have.
· 8 min read
A sales cap is the edge of your state's cottage food exemption. Here is what the number actually measures, why lawmakers write one in, how far apart the states are, and how to keep a running total that never surprises you.
· 8 min read
Taking orders online, delivering across town, and mailing a box are three different acts under cottage food law. Here is which states allow each one, what the agencies actually say, and the label, payment, and tax details that follow.
· 10 min read
A cottage food exemption skips the inspection, not the science. Here is what an inspector would look at in your kitchen if one ever came: hands, household traffic, allergens, temperature, water activity and pH, cleaning versus sanitizing, and the training some states require.
· 11 min read
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