Selling and marketing
Selling Baked Goods From Home in Michigan: 4 Rules (2026)
The four Michigan cottage food limits that decide what you can bake, where you can sell it, and how you get paid.
On this page
- What Michigan counts as a cottage food
- Where you can sell and deliver
- Do you need training before you take orders
- Four checks before your first order
- How to keep every order inside Michigan
- What to do when a customer asks for a cold item
- When a shop asks to resell your baked goods
- What one order actually costs you
- Mistakes that cost you money
The rules come from the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, and they are narrower than most people expect. Selling baked goods from home in Michigan works well for cookies, breads, and bars, but cold items fall outside the rules.
What to remember
- Only shelf-stable baked goods count as cottage food.
- Every sale and delivery has to stay inside Michigan.
- You sell direct to the buyer, not through a store.
- You can advertise and take orders online.
What Michigan counts as a cottage food
Michigan State University Extension puts it plainly. Only non-potentially hazardous foods that do not require time and temperature control for safety can be cottage foods. Baked goods fit that description, which is why breads, cookies, and bars are the usual starting point.
The same guide confirms that baked goods and other non-potentially hazardous foods can be produced in a home kitchen. That is the permission you are working under. Your kitchen does not have to become a commercial space for these items.
Keep a simple list of every item you plan to sell and mark whether it needs refrigeration. If it does, it stays off the menu. Run that check before you print a menu or post an order form.
Where you can sell and deliver
The state’s cottage food page states that a cottage food product may only be sold or delivered within Michigan. No shipping to a cousin in Ohio, and no orders from a vacation rental across the line. Keep your delivery radius inside the state.
Sales also have to be direct. The department’s getting started FAQ says a cottage food product must be sold directly from the cottage food operation to the consumer. You are the seller, the buyer is the buyer, and no store or distributor sits in between.
Online selling is allowed. The same guide says a Michigan cottage food operator can advertise and sell product on the internet. Post a menu, take orders through your own shop, and arrange pickup or local delivery. The full requirements checklist covers the rest of the setup.
Set your online shop to pickup only or local delivery only. Do not offer shipping at checkout. A simple radius rule on your order form keeps every sale inside Michigan without a judgment call at the counter.
Do you need training before you take orders
The same guide offers an online training for people who want to prepare and sell food under the cottage food exemptions. It walks through the same limits described on this page. Take it before your first order rather than after a customer question you cannot answer.
The training covers shelf-stable items, in-state sales, and direct sales. It is not a substitute for reading the state rules, but it gives you a structured pass through them. Finish it before you quote a price or accept a deposit.
Four checks before your first order
Check the item is shelf stable
Only non-potentially hazardous foods that do not need time and temperature control can be cottage foods, according to the same guide.
Keep every sale in Michigan
The state says a cottage food product may only be sold or delivered within Michigan. Set your pickup and delivery area to match.
Sell direct to the buyer
The department’s FAQ says the product must be sold directly from your operation to the consumer. No reseller in the middle.
Take the training
The same guide offers an online training for anyone preparing and selling food under the cottage food exemptions.
Run these four checks on every new item, not just your first order. A recipe that passes today can fail if you add a cold filling later. The check takes a minute and saves a refund.
How to keep every order inside Michigan
The geography rule is simple, but it is easy to break by accident. Set your pickup and delivery area before you advertise. If you deliver, draw a line on a map and stay inside it.
When an order comes from another state, decline politely and offer local pickup instead. Do not make an exception for a friend or a family event across the line. The rule covers both sale and delivery, so the answer is the same either way.
What to do when a customer asks for a cold item
A cold filling takes the item out of cottage food. Check each request against the shelf-stable rule before you say yes. If the item has to stay refrigerated to be safe, it is not a cottage food.
Offer a shelf-stable alternative from your menu instead. Do not promise to keep it cold or deliver it on ice. That promise does not change the rule, and it puts the order outside what you can legally sell.
When a shop asks to resell your baked goods
Direct to the consumer is the rule. A cafe that wants to resell your bars is not a direct sale. Confirm with the department before you agree to anything.
The same limit applies to a distributor or a market stall that buys wholesale. You can sell at a farmers market directly to the shopper. You cannot sell to another business that then sells to its customers.
What one order actually costs you
Price from the whole order, not from the flour. A four dozen cookie order carries three costs: ingredients, packaging, and your time, plus the small overhead of running your oven and replacing pans. Leave any one of them out and the order looks more profitable than it is.
For example, four dozen cookies use about $9.60 of ingredients and $4.80 of boxes and bags. Two hours of your time at $15 an hour is $30, and overhead for oven gas and a pan replacement fund adds about $2.40. That is $46.80 to fill the order.
At $18 a dozen you collect $72, which leaves $25.20 after ingredients, labor, and overhead, a margin of about 35 percent. That is $11.70 per dozen to make and $18 per dozen to sell, leaving $6.30 per dozen before any discount. Drop your labor out of the math and the same order looks like $55.20 of profit, which it is not.
Run that math on every item before it goes on the menu. The pricing method that includes your hours is the difference between a hobby that pays for itself and a business that does.
Mistakes that cost you money
The quiet loss is unpriced time. If you fill three orders a week at a price that ignores your hours, you are working for free and calling it a business. Cost the labor every time, even when the order is for a friend. The profit picture for a home bakery is built from exactly this number.
Before you commit to a menu, read the state rules overview and compare your plan against it line by line. Ten minutes now saves a refund later.
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Common questions
Can I sell my baked goods online in Michigan?
Yes. The same guide says a Michigan cottage food operator can advertise and sell product on the internet. The limit is geography, not the internet. Every order still has to be sold and delivered inside Michigan, directly to the person buying it.
Can I sell at a farmers market?
Yes. The same guide notes that baked goods and other non-potentially hazardous foods that do not require time and temperature control can be sold at a farmers market. The direct to consumer rule still applies, and the market has to be in Michigan.
What foods can I not sell from my kitchen?
Only non-potentially hazardous foods that do not require time and temperature control for safety qualify as cottage foods. If an item has to be kept cold to be safe, it falls outside the cottage food rules and should not be sold from your home kitchen.
Can I deliver to a customer's house?
Delivery is allowed as long as it stays inside Michigan and goes directly to the consumer. The state rule covers both sale and delivery, so a drop off across town is fine. A shipment to another state is not.
Is there training I should take first?
The same guide offers an online training for people who want to prepare and sell foods under the cottage food exemptions. It covers the rules this page summarizes. Taking it before your first order is a cheap way to avoid a mistake you cannot undo.
Sources
This is general information about Michigan cottage food rules, not legal or tax advice. Confirm your situation with the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.