Tennessee Cottage Food Law: What You Can Sell, Where You Can Sell It, and What the Label Must Say (2026 Guide)

Tennessee lets a home baker start selling without asking anyone for permission first. No permit, no registration form, no fee, no required class, no dollar cap. The Tennessee Food Freedom Act works by exemption instead of by license: make the food at your private residence, put the required information on the label, sell inside Tennessee, and you sit outside the state's food manufacturing rules. On July 1, 2025 the exemption grew to cover refrigerated foods, and that expansion arrived with the tightest sales restriction in the statute.

Who the law covers

The statute turns on one definition. Under Tenn. Code Ann. § 53-1-102, a "homemade food item" is a food item, including a non-alcoholic beverage, which is produced and, if packaged, packaged at the private residence of the producer. There is no application to file and no category to qualify for. If you cook, bake, dry, mix, ferment, preserve, or dehydrate the food where you live, you are a producer under the Act.

A private residence is also the only place the exemption reaches. PB1909 is blunt about it: anyone making products in a community kitchen, a restaurant, a church, or another commercial facility needs a food manufacturing permit from TDA. Before 2022, Tennessee home producers could also work out of shared and commercial kitchens, and the Act closed that door. Our comparison of a home kitchen against a commercial one covers the tradeoff.

What changed on July 1, 2025

Public Chapter 431, passed April 21, 2025 and effective July 1, is the change that reshaped the Act, which had taken effect on July 1, 2022. It added a subdivision to § 53-1-118(b) covering time and temperature control for safety foods, and renumbered everything after it.

What can you sell?

Shelf-stable products

Non-TCS foods have been covered since day one, and the category is defined by chemistry rather than by a list. A food is non-TCS when its pH and water activity together keep bacteria from growing quickly, which PB1909 sets out in two tables crossing pH bands against water activity bands. The UT food science slide deck on the 2025 Act works the same tables into examples: breads, cookies, cakes, candy, dried pasta, spice blends, dried fruit and vegetables, nuts, granola, jams, jellies, syrups, canned fruit, acidified pickles and salsas, bottled condiments, ferments such as sauerkraut and kombucha, and hard aged cheeses and butter. Frosting counts as non-TCS only when its water activity stays below 0.88, which is why a buttercream cupcake and one filled with cream after baking land in different places.

Tennessee's law carries no exclusion for low-acid canned goods, which puts real responsibility on the producer. UT Extension's canning bulletin W1400 tells TFFA producers to work only from tested recipes (the USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning, the Ball books, or the National Center for Home Food Preservation), to pressure can anything above pH 4.6, and to skip hot-fill-hold processing, which takes expert validation.

Refrigerated products

Since July 2025, § 53-1-118(b)(3) lets you sell TCS foods too, with conditions. They must not include unpasteurized milk, or foods that are or that contain alcoholic beverages, fish, shellfish products, meat, meat byproducts, or meat food products. Much of what needs a refrigerator is now in play. The UT food science examples of TCS foods include fresh slaw, salsa, and pico de gallo, cut fruit and vegetables, cooked rice and pasta, pastries filled with cream after baking, and pasteurized dairy such as milk, yogurt, and fresh cheese.

They carry the food safety burden that comes with them. PB1909 follows the 2022 FDA Food Code: cold food at 41°F or below and hot food at 135°F or above through storage, transport, and sale, cooked food cooled to 70°F within two hours and to 41°F within four more, and anything held outside temperature control discarded past its time limit. Our food safety fundamentals guide covers the routine.

Poultry, and what stays out

Poultry is the odd one. It is allowed as a TCS homemade food item only if your operation either raises and slaughters under the federal 1,000-bird exemption at 9 CFR 381.10(c), or works from federally or state-inspected poultry bearing the official mark of inspection under 9 CFR 381.10(d) and meets that exemption's other requirements. In practice the second route means cooking with inspected chicken bought at the grocery store. PB1909 notes that canning poultry falls outside the 381.10(d) exemption, and the federal rule says so on its face.

Red meat, fish, shellfish, raw milk, and alcohol are not workable, and neither is anything sold outside Tennessee. For the general shape of these lines across states, see what counts as cottage food.

Where and how can you sell?

Shelf-stable: almost anywhere in the state

This is where Tennessee is genuinely permissive. Non-TCS food may be sold by the producer to the consumer, in person or remotely, including by telephone or internet, or by an agent of the producer or a third-party vendor such as a retail shop or grocery store. Delivery is just as open: by you, an agent, a vendor, or a third-party carrier. That carrier clause is what makes in-state shipping legal. You can mail a box of cookies to a customer in Memphis. You cannot mail it to one in Kentucky.

Farmers markets, roadside stands, festivals, grocery shelves, and online orders all sit inside this. Markets add their own vendor requirements on top of the law, which our farmers market vendor guide walks through, and the online side is covered in can you sell cottage food online.

Refrigerated: hand to hand only

TCS items are the mirror image. They may be sold only by the producer to the consumer in person, or by an agent of the producer in person, such as a farm stand on the property where the food was prepared. No grocery shelf, no shipping, no carrier, no drop-off, no restaurant.

Where an online order fits is an open question. The statute says the sale must happen in person, and UT's labeling slides treat the webpage disclosure option as a non-TCS matter, which suggests online ordering of TCS items was not what the legislature had in mind. Handing the food over yourself is inside the rule and a courier handoff is not, but if your plan is refrigerated products ordered ahead and collected in person, put that arrangement in front of a lawyer first.

Restaurants and caterers

Tennessee restaurants, food trucks, and caterers follow the FDA Food Code, which requires food from an inspected source. PB1909 says the Tennessee Department of Health does not let those establishments use homemade products at all, ingredients included. A retail store may resell your shelf-stable jam. A restaurant may not put it on a plate.

Permits, fees, and training

There are none of any kind. TDA's page says the department does not issue permits or licenses and does not conduct inspections for products made under this law, and that it administers the Act only to the extent it carves an exception out of the Tennessee Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. No food handler card, no manager certification, no exam, no renewal. UT's slides do describe a USDA-funded course for home-based processors covering regulations, canning, and starting a business. Worth taking; nothing requires it.

The Act does not touch the business side, though. You still register a business name, file taxes, and handle sales tax; § 53-1-118(c)(4) says the exemption does not release producers or sellers from any applicable tax law. Our guide on how to start a cottage food business covers that sequence.

What has to be on the label

The labeling rules are the one place Tennessee is strict, and they apply to every homemade food item, refrigerated or not. Four items:

1. The name, home address, and telephone number of the producer.
2. The common or usual name of the food.
3. The ingredients in descending order of predominance.
4. This statement, word for word: "This product was produced at a private residence that is exempt from state licensing and inspection. This product may contain allergens." (Tenn. Code Ann. § 53-1-118(b)(4)(D))

That home address is a real address. PB1909 says a P.O. box does not satisfy the requirement, and UT's slide deck is blunter: there is no alternative to any of it, and a producer who does not want personal contact details on a jar has to become a licensed food manufacturer so the manufacturing address goes on the label instead.

Where the information goes depends on how you sell: a label on the package, a label on the bulk container, a placard at the point of sale if it is neither, or the webpage if the item is offered only online. Watch the trap in that last one. PB1909 reads the webpage option as an addition rather than a substitute, so a packaged product still needs the full label on the package however it was ordered. For telephone and custom orders the seller need not display the information, but must tell the customer the food was produced at a private residence exempt from state licensing and inspection and may contain allergens, and have the rest ready on request.

Two notes from PB1909: the Act requires no net weight, though a printed one has to be accurate and the scale need not be licensed, and adding "Keep Refrigerated" to a TCS item is strongly recommended even though the statute does not demand it. Our cottage food labeling guide has the layout details and an allergen checklist.

Is there a sales limit?

No. The statute names no dollar figure and no production limit, and we found no agency-set or inflation-adjusted number because there is no cap to adjust. See cottage food sales limits explained for how differently states handle this.

The binding limit is geography. Section 53-1-118(c)(5) says the section does not apply to sales other than intrastate sales made within Tennessee, which is why the shipping allowance stops at the state line and why an interstate order pulls you under FDA jurisdiction.

Inspection, complaints, and enforcement

There is no routine inspection and no permit to inspect against, but the exemption has a hinge in it. The opening sentence of § 53-1-118(a) exempts homemade food from state licensing, permitting, inspecting, packaging, and labeling laws "except when the department of health is investigating a reported foodborne illness," and subsection (c)(1) says the section does not impede that investigation. If someone gets sick and names your product, the Tennessee Department of Health may need access to where you produce.

TDA's lever is product-based: if it finds homemade products in the marketplace that fall outside the exemption, mislabeled ones included, it may take enforcement action under Tenn. Code Ann. § 53-1-201 et seq. Nothing in the Act protects you from liability either, a point PB1909 makes directly. Dated batch records and pH readings take a minute a day and are the difference between answering an investigator's questions and guessing.

Local rules, markets, and your kitchen

Subsection (d) preempts counties, municipalities, and other political jurisdictions from prohibiting and regulating the production and sale of homemade food items. A city cannot require its own home kitchen permit or ban the category.

What it does not address is zoning, home occupation ordinances, deed restrictions, or HOA covenants, and we found no TDA guidance on those. A residential rule about customer traffic or signage is not a food regulation, so ask your planning office before you advertise porch pickup. Private operators set their own terms too. PB1909 warns that some markets and retailers will not carry products from unlicensed facilities, whatever the state allows.

Caveats and open questions

• The ingredient exclusions may be narrower than intended. As codified, the banned ingredients (unpasteurized milk, alcoholic beverages, fish, shellfish products, meat, meat byproducts, meat food products) sit inside subdivision (b)(3), which governs TCS foods. UT's food science slide deck says the same restrictions were meant to cover non-TCS items too, and that the list "was lost in the current code." It tells producers to treat all of them as off limits across the board. A shelf-stable product containing meat, jerky for example, sits in a gray zone where federal inspection law applies anyway.
• Alcohol is defined by interpretation, not statute. The definition names non-alcoholic beverages and stops there. PB1909 reads that as less than 0.5 percent alcohol in the finished product, which is an interpretation rather than a number in the code.
• TDA has published no food list, FAQ, or rules. Its page is four short paragraphs pointing readers to the statute and to private counsel. Extension publications are doing the explanatory work.
• Some local pages still describe the 2022 version. Shelby County's homemade food page was written around the original non-TCS-only law. Check the date on anything you read.

Where to get official help

• TDA Consumer and Industry Services, Food Safety Section: NewFood.Business@tn.gov or 615-837-5193, listed by UT Extension and Shelby County as the contact for new home food businesses. Its Food Freedom Act page is short but authoritative on what TDA will and will not do.
• UT Department of Food Science Extension: foodsci_ext@utk.edu or 865-974-7331. PB1909, dated January 2026, is the closest thing Tennessee has to an official handbook, and the department also publishes W1400 on canning under the Act and PB1898 on egg sales from small flocks.
• The law itself: the 2022 public chapter runs four pages and the 2025 amendment two. Read the amendment first, then the original, and you will have the whole exemption in front of you.

Three decisions settle most of it before your first sale: confirm whether your product is non-TCS or accept the in-person-only rule if it is not, print labels with your real address and the required sentence exactly as written, and decide whether your home address on every jar is something you can live with. If it is not, that is a business decision rather than a legal problem, and it points toward a licensed kitchen. Our state-by-state guides show how far that calculation moves across a state line.