Cottage food rules
Missouri Cottage Food Law and Eggs: What You Can Sell
A clear answer on eggs in Missouri, and what you can still sell from your kitchen.
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What to remember
- Missouri’s cottage law covers baked goods, canned jams or jellies, and dried herb and dried herb mixes.
- Shell eggs are not one of the covered products, so the cottage food exemption does not apply to them.
- For the foods that are covered, you can sell without a permit, license, registration or inspection from the state or your local health department.
- Every food a cottage food production operation intends to sell has to be labeled.
If you keep a few hens and you bake for neighbors, the egg question comes up almost immediately. You have eggs in the fridge, a cake recipe that uses them, and a customer who would happily buy a dozen. Missouri’s cottage food law settles some of that and leaves the rest to a different set of rules. Here is where eggs stand, and what you can still sell from your kitchen. For the wider picture, start with Missouri Cottage Food Law: What Home Bakers Need to Know.
What the Missouri cottage law covers
The Missouri Cottage Law lets you make baked goods, canned jams or jellies, and dried herb and dried herb mixes in your home kitchen and sell them without a permit, license, registration or inspection from the state or your local health department. That is a short list, and it is meant to be short. Shell eggs are not on it, so the exemption does not reach a carton of eggs sold on its own.
Baking with eggs is a different question from selling eggs, and it is worth getting a clear answer for your own kitchen rather than assuming. The cottage law covers baked goods, so the cake or the loaf is the product you are selling. How the state guidance treats the ingredients that go into it is something to read up on and confirm. Home bakers in other states run into the same line, and our guide to Michigan cottage food law and eggs shows how another state draws it.
Labeling still applies to what you sell
The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services requires a cottage food production operation to label all of the foods it intends to sell to consumers. Every item, not only the ones that already look homemade. Build the label into your routine so it goes on before the box leaves your kitchen. If you want a field by field walk through, our Kentucky cottage food label guide works as a checklist even though the exact wording changes from state to state.
Read the state guidance before you sell
Missouri publishes a Home-Based Kitchen Food Production Guidance document, developed to provide standards, guidelines and consistent information for those who provide safe and quality food to consumers. Read it before you take your first order, and keep a copy where you can find it. It is the plainest place to check how your kitchen, your process and your packaging are supposed to look.
Write down what you plan to sell and where each item stands. Baked goods, canned jams and jellies, and dried herbs and dried herb mixes can go on the list. Eggs stay off it. That way, when a customer asks for a dozen eggs, you have a real answer ready instead of a guess. Knowing your numbers matters just as much as knowing the rules, so price each bake properly before you sell it.
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Common questions
Can I sell eggs from my backyard hens under Missouri's cottage food law?
No. The cottage law only allows baked goods, canned jams or jellies, and dried herb and dried herb mixes, so shell eggs are not among the products covered by the cottage food exemption.
Do I need a permit or license to sell cottage food in Missouri?
For the covered foods, the law lets you make them in your home kitchen and sell them without a permit, license, registration or inspection from the state or your local health department.
Do I have to label my cottage foods?
Yes. The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services requires a cottage food production operation to label all of the foods it intends to sell to consumers.
Can I sell jams and jellies as well as baked goods?
Yes. Canned jams or jellies are on the list of covered products, along with baked goods and dried herb and dried herb mixes.
Where can I read the state guidance?
The Missouri Home-Based Kitchen Food Production Guidance was developed to provide standards, guidelines and consistent information for people who provide safe and quality food to consumers. Read it before you sell.
Sources
General information, not legal advice. Rules can change, so confirm with the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services or your local health department before you sell.