Cottage food rules
Wisconsin Cottage Law Approved Food List
A plain-language look at what Wisconsin lets you bake and sell from home, and how to run those orders without guessing.
On this page
If you bake from home in Wisconsin and sell what you make, the approved food list is the first thing to get straight. It is not a vibe. It is a list, it is maintained by the state, and it decides which of your recipes you can legally sell and which ones stay in the family kitchen. Get this wrong and you can lose money on labels, packaging, and ingredients for something you were never allowed to sell in the first place.
Here is how to work through it without overthinking it.
What to remember
- The approved food list is set by the state, not by you. - A recipe being good is not the same as a recipe being allowed. - Confirm your exact items before you price, label, or photograph them. - Labels and where you sell are separate requirements from the food list itself. - Keep your menu, your labels, and your records in one place so a change does not wreck you.
Find the list from the state, not from a group
The fastest way to get this wrong is to trust a forum post, a screenshot, or a friend who sold jam two years ago. Rules get updated. Items get added and removed. Go to the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, find their cottage food or home kitchen page, and read it yourself.
Bookmark that page. When you are unsure about a new item, you go back to it, not to a comment thread.
Match your menu to the list, item by item
Write down everything you actually plan to sell. Not the whole catalog of things you could bake, just the real menu. Then go down the list one item at a time and mark each one yes or no.
This sounds tedious. It takes twenty minutes and it saves you a season of work on a product you cannot sell.
Get your labels and your selling channel right too
The food list is one requirement. Your label is another. Where you are allowed to sell is a third. All three have to line up before you take real orders.
If your label does not say what the state requires, you can be selling an approved food in a way that still is not allowed. If you are selling somewhere the rules do not cover, the same thing happens. Check all three together, not one at a time.
Keep the paperwork where you can find it
Once you are selling, you need to be able to show what you made, what went into it, and what you charged. That is not just for the state. It is for you. When an ingredient price jumps or an item gets removed from the list, you want to see your whole menu in one place instead of hunting through notebooks and texts.
Open the state page
Go to the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection and find the cottage food or home kitchen section. That page is the source of truth.
Cross off anything not allowed
List your real menu and check each item. Remove anything that is not on the current list before you spend a dollar on it.
Fix your labels and channel
Read the label and selling rules and match your actual labels and your actual sales channel to what they say.
Track orders, costs, and recipes together
Keep your ingredients, your order history, and your recipes in one place so a menu change is easy to act on.
Run the allowed menu like a business, not a guess
Once your items are cleared, the day to day is orders, money, and ingredients. That part should not be harder than the baking.
You also get recipes with real costing, ingredient inventory, and a weekly planner, so when an item comes off the approved list you can see exactly what it costs you to drop it. We set it up with you and move your old shop over, and a real person answers, usually within minutes.
If you are still comparing ways to take orders, start with what home bakers actually use to sell and how to build an online store for bakers. When you are ready to price the items that made it onto the list, how to price your bakes walks through the math.
Start your Brevl shop free
Free, no signup.
What to do this week
Open the state page today. Check your current menu against it. Fix the items that do not pass before you take another order. Then set up one place to keep your recipes, costs, and orders so your approved menu stays clean and your money stays accounted for. The rules are the boring part. The orders are the good part. Get the boring part done once and you can focus on the good part all year.
Common questions
Can I sell any baked good I want from my Wisconsin home kitchen?
No. Wisconsin keeps a set list of what a home kitchen may produce, so some items are in and some are out. Check the current list from the state before you build your menu around any item.
Do I need a license to sell cottage foods in Wisconsin?
Wisconsin has a home kitchen path for small food businesses, but the exact requirements depend on what you make and where you sell it. Confirm the current rules with the state before you take your first order.
Can I sell my cottage food bakes online?
It depends on the rules in your state and how you sell. Keep your sales channel and your labels within what the state allows, and check before you list an item.
Where do I find the official Wisconsin approved food list?
Go straight to the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. Only the state's own page can tell you what is currently approved.
This guide is general information, not legal advice. Cottage food rules change and vary by state. Confirm what you may sell, how you must label it, and where you may sell it with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection before you sell anything.