Cookies are the easiest food to sell from home. They're baked, dry and keep at room temperature, and every cottage food law here covers them: California names cookies on its approved list, Michigan covers baked goods that don't need temperature control, Minnesota covers food that isn't potentially hazardous, and North Dakota allows sales straight to the customer. Decorated sugar cookies with royal icing qualify too. The exceptions are fillings and frostings that need the fridge: a cream cheese filling or frosting is out in Michigan, Minnesota and California, and in North Dakota it has to be kept and delivered frozen. What varies more is how you sell: online orders, shipping and sales through shops each have their own rules state by state.
The short version
- Cookies fit every cottage food law here.
- Decorated cookies with royal icing qualify.
- Cream cheese fillings and frostings need refrigeration.
- California names cookies; Class B allows sales through shops.
- Michigan allows online orders in the state after the buyer can talk to you.
- Label each package as your state requires.
- TaroStack keeps each order and each bake's lot. More below.
Cookies, state by state
| Product | Michigan | Minnesota | North Dakota | California |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chocolate chip cookies | Yes | Yes, registered | Yes | Yes, on the list |
| Decorated sugar cookies, royal icing | Yes | Yes, registered | Yes | Yes, on the list |
| Red velvet cookies, cream cheese filling | No: needs temperature control | No: potentially hazardous | Frozen, with labels | No: not on the list |
Pricing a dozen is in how to price cookies, and the license question in cookie business license.
The rules
| State | Rule |
|---|---|
| Michigan | Food that isn't time/temperature control for safety, including jams, candy, dried fruit, granola, dry mixes, vinegar, dried herbs and baked goods; not meat or poultry, milk products, beverages, salsa, or canned foods other than standardized jams (MCL 289.1105(k)); prepackaged, labeled with the home kitchen statement, sold straight to the consumer (MCL 289.4102) |
| Minnesota | Food that isn't potentially hazardous, and home-canned pickles, vegetables or fruits at pH 4.6 or lower or water activity 0.85 or less; registration every year and approved food safety training (Minn. Stat. 28A.152) |
| North Dakota | No state license for cottage food sold directly to an informed end consumer; foods that need refrigeration labeled with safe handling instructions and as transported and maintained frozen; no uninspected meat, poultry only from the seller's own birds (N.D.C.C. 23-09.5-02) |
| California | Cottage foods are nonpotentially hazardous foods on the approved list, among them baked goods without cream, custard or meat fillings, candy, chocolate-covered nonperishables, dried fruit, dried pasta, granola, herb blends, honey, standardized jams, nut butters, popcorn, vinegar and mustard, roasted coffee and dried tea (HSC 114365.5); Class A sells directly, Class B also through shops and restaurants (HSC 113758) |
This is general information, not legal advice.
An example: a California decorated cookie baker
Golden Hour Cookie Co., a made-up home baker in Fresno, California, decorates sugar cookies for birthdays and weddings. Cookies are on California's approved list, so it registered a Class A cottage food operation and takes orders through its website, delivering itself. A bakery-café asked to sell the cookies by the piece; that's an indirect sale, which takes a Class B permit and a kitchen inspection, so the baker applied. A customer wanted red velvet with cream cheese filling; that needs refrigeration, so it became a red velvet cookie with white chocolate instead. California's classes in full are in California cottage food law.
Get the checker
Download the home cookie checker. Two sheets: your products, whether each needs refrigeration, is meat or poultry, a milk product, a canned food other than jam, or a drink, and whether it's on California's list; how Michigan's, Minnesota's, North Dakota's and California's cottage food laws treat it fill in; and each state's rules as read for this article. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
Forty custom orders a month, each with its own design, count and date, is a calendar of sticky notes. When two orders need the same cutter on the same day, paper doesn't warn you.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps each customer's order and each batch's lot, and what each cookie costs.
Orders. Each customer's order goes in for its pickup or market day, with a picking list.
Each batch a lot. A batch of cookies is a batch from its recipe, with its date and lot, and the lot goes on each order it fills.
True cost. Each cookie is costed from its recipe and the batch, at what the ingredients actually cost.
| The job | Paper | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Who gets what on market day | Order sheets | Orders by day |
| Which batch went to which customer | Not recorded | Lots on each order |
| What a cookie costs | A guess | True cost from the recipe and batch |
Orders, recipes and batches 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.