Arkansas replaced its cottage food law in 2021 with the Food Freedom Act, Act 1040, since amended by Act 698 of 2025. Homemade food or drink that doesn't need refrigeration, made at your residence, needs no permit or inspection from the Department of Health. You can sell it in person, by phone or online, through an agent, or through a retail shop or grocery store, and deliver it yourself or by mail or parcel carrier; sales can even cross state lines if you follow federal law. Pickles and acidified vegetables count too, with an approved recipe or a pH meter on every batch, a batch number on every jar, and records. The one place it can't go is a restaurant's kitchen. Every product discloses the date it was made, your name and contact, ingredients, and a two-sentence statement. In the example below, a Carroll County cook sorts six products. Below are the rules, the label, pickles, the example, and a free checklist.
The short version
- No ADH permit or inspection for homemade non-TCS food or drink made at your private residence.
- Sell direct in person, by phone or online; through an agent; or through a third-party vendor such as a shop or grocery.
- Deliver yourself, through the vendor, or by mail or parcel carrier.
- Out-of-state sales only if you comply with federal law; check with FDA and the other state first.
- Not to restaurants for use in their food.
- Pickles and acidified vegetables at pH 4.6 or below: approved recipe or a pH meter on every batch, a batch number on each jar, and batch records.
- Disclose: date made, name, address and phone (or an ID number), product, ingredients, and the statement.
- TaroStack keeps each batch's number, date and pH, and where it went. More below.
The rules
| Rule | What ADH's guidelines say |
|---|---|
| What's covered | Food or drink that doesn't need refrigeration, processed at the producer's private residence |
| Permit | None; exempt from ADH permitting and inspection |
| Selling | Direct to an informed end consumer, in person, by phone or online, by you, your agent, or a third-party vendor |
| Where | From a retail space at the farm, home or office where it's made; at a vendor's store; in Arkansas, or elsewhere if federal law is followed |
| Delivery | By you, your agent, the vendor, or a third-party carrier such as mail or parcel post |
| Stores | A vendor that also sells inspected food keeps homemade food separate |
| Not allowed | Sales to restaurants for use there; TCS foods such as cooked or raw animal foods, cooked plant foods not on ADH's list, cut melons and tomatoes, garlic in oil |
The rules are in ADH's Homemade Food Production Guidelines, updated May 21, 2026, and the Food Freedom Act itself. This is general information, not legal advice.
The label
| Line | What it says |
|---|---|
| Date | The date the food was manufactured, produced or processed |
| Producer | Name, address and phone number, or an ID number from the Arkansas Department of Agriculture |
| Product | The common or usual name |
| Ingredients | In descending order of predominance |
| Statement | "This product was produced in a private residence that is exempt from state licensing and inspection. This product may contain allergens." |
The information goes on a label on the package, or on the container for bulk sales with a written copy for the buyer. Online, the website carries it too, and the package is still labeled. How to work out the allergens in a recipe is in allergen matrix template.
Pickles and acidified vegetables
Pickled cucumbers and other acidified vegetables at an equilibrium pH of 4.6 or less are homemade non-TCS food if:
| Requirement | What it means |
|---|---|
| The process | A recipe from an ADH-approved source or confirmed by a food process authority; or a calibrated pH meter (0.1 resolution and accuracy) on every batch |
| Batch number | A unique number for each batch on the label |
| Records | The batch number, the recipe used, its source or the batch's measured pH, and the date prepared |
How the readings are taken is in pH testing for acidified foods.
An example: a Carroll County cook
Ozark Hollow Kitchen, a made-up home cook in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, I use in these examples, sells at a market, online, and through a grocery in town:
| Product | Allowed? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Fried apple pies | Yes | Non-TCS |
| Blackberry jam in the grocery | Yes | Kept apart from inspected products |
| Bread-and-butter pickles | Yes | pH meter on every batch, batch number and records |
| Possum pie | No | Cream and pudding layers need refrigeration |
| Chocolate gravy | No | Cooked dairy needs refrigeration |
| Fried pies for a diner to serve | No | Not to restaurants for use there |
Each batch of pickles gets the next number, written on every jar and in the batch log with its pH reading and date. By September Ozark Hollow had sold $28,700. How a home food business starts is in how to start a cottage food business.
Get the checklist
Download the Arkansas homemade food checklist. Three sheets: the disclosure, each line with a column for yours; products, each with whether it's allowed and why; and sales by month. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
A batch number on every jar and a log of batch, recipe, pH and date is a lot system, kept by hand. With a grocery and online orders on top, a question about one jar means finding its batch and every customer who got it.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps each batch's number, date and pH, and where it went.
Batch numbers. Each batch gets a lot number with its production date, made from a versioned recipe, and lot labels print with them, so the jar's batch number and the log come from the same record.
Readings on the batch. Fields of your own on the batch record hold the pH reading, so the log Arkansas asks for is the batch record.
Where it went. The grocery and online buyers are customers with orders, and each order records the lots it got, so one recall report shows where a batch went; TaroStack connects to Square for market sales.
| The job | Notebook | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| A batch number per jar | Handwritten | The batch's lot, on printed labels |
| Batch, recipe, pH, date | A log sheet | The batch record |
| Who got a batch | Not recorded | One recall report |
Lots, batches, versioned recipes and lot labels are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.