Cottage food rules
Cottage Food Approved Foods: How to Check Before You Sell
Know which of your bakes you can sell from home, and where to check it.
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If you have ever scrolled a baking group at midnight trying to work out whether your banana bread is legal to sell, you are in the right place. This is a paperwork question, not a baking question. You already know how to bake. What you need is the short list of bakes your state has cleared, and a way to check it without wading through legal writing.
What to remember
- Cottage food approved foods come from your state, not from one national list. - Check the list against the bakes you actually sell, not the ones you might sell someday. - A food being homemade does not put it on the approved list. - Save the date you checked, so you know how fresh your answer is. - Once the food question is settled, taking orders and getting paid should not be the hard part.
The list decides, not your recipe
It is easy to assume a simple, old family recipe is fine. The list does not work that way. What counts is whether the food you make is named or covered on your state’s list. If it is not, selling it from your home kitchen is a risk you do not need to take.
How to check your bakes, step by step
Open your state's list
On your phone, search your state name plus cottage food and open the page that belongs to a state office. Read the whole page, not just the top of it.
Write down what you really sell
List your actual sellers, the six or eight things people order from you. Leave off the experiments.
Match them one by one
Go down the list and mark each bake as named or not named. Be honest here. A near match is not a match.
Note anything else the page asks of you
If the page mentions labels, paperwork, or limits, write those next to the food they apply to, so you are not guessing later.
Save the date you checked
Take a screenshot or print the page and write today’s date on it. That is your proof of when you last looked.
If you bake in California, how to check the CA cottage food approved list goes through it line by line. In Wisconsin, the Wisconsin cottage law approved food list covers the same ground for that state. Illinois bakers can start with Illinois approved recipes for a home bakery.
If a best seller is not on the list
Do not talk yourself into it. If your top seller is not named, treat it as not allowed until someone at the state office tells you otherwise. Call or email the office that published the list and ask about your exact recipe, in plain words. Write down who you spoke to, what they said, and the date. Then either swap that item off your menu or hold it until you get a clear answer.
Selling once you know your foods
Once the food question is settled, the rest is running a small shop. Brevl is one flat $20 a month with no cut of your sales, and a 14 day free trial. You take card payments through your own Stripe or Square account, plus Venmo, Cash App, Zelle, and cash. Your shop is yours to customize, with your photos, your colors, and your own web address. It works on a computer and on a phone, and a real person answers, usually within minutes.
If you are still deciding how to take orders, home baking business app compares the usual choices for home bakers.
Keep your proof where you can find it
Save the list, the screenshot, and your notes in one folder you can open from your phone. Add a short note in your own words about what you sell and what you checked. If a customer or a market manager ever asks, you have the answer ready instead of a story.
That is the whole job. Check the list, match your bakes, write it down, and then get back to baking.
This is general information, not legal advice. Cottage food rules are set by your state and can change. Check your own state's current rules or ask your state office before you sell.