Selling plates of food from home, dinners on a Sunday, plates after church, is the thing cottage food laws were never written for: cooked meals need temperature control and often have meat. Michigan and Minnesota exclude them, and California's cottage food list doesn't include them. Two states have built a separate path: California's microenterprise home kitchen operation, where the city or county has opted in, and Utah's microenterprise home kitchen permit. North Dakota allows meals without meat if they're frozen and labeled. Everywhere else, plates for sale come from a licensed kitchen. In the example below, a California cook gets a home kitchen permit.
The short version
- Cooked plates need temperature control: not cottage foods.
- Michigan and Minnesota: no.
- California: a home kitchen operation permit where the city or county allows it; same day, 30 meals a day.
- Utah: a home kitchen permit from the local health department.
- North Dakota: frozen, labeled meals without meat.
- Otherwise: a licensed or shared kitchen.
- TaroStack keeps each customer's order and each batch's lot. More below.
Plates of food, state by state
| Product | Michigan | Minnesota | North Dakota | California |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chicken and rice plate | No: meat and poultry are excluded | No: potentially hazardous | No: uninspected meat | No: not on the list |
| Enchilada plate | No: meat and poultry are excluded | No: potentially hazardous | No: uninspected meat | No: not on the list |
| Vegetable curry plate, frozen | No: needs temperature control | No: potentially hazardous | Frozen, with labels | No: not on the list |
Utah's permit, worked through, is in can you sell pizza from home, and sandwiches by route in can you sell sandwiches from home.
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) |
| California: home meals | A microenterprise home kitchen operation can cook and sell meals the same day, 30 a day and 90 a week, up to $100,000 a year, where the city or county has opted in (HSC 113825) |
| Utah: home meals | A microenterprise home kitchen permit from the local health department allows hot and cold meals sold directly to consumers, same day or within 72 hours with temperature logs (Utah Code 26B-7-416) |
This is general information, not legal advice.
An example: Sunday plates in California
Magnolia Table Plates, a made-up home cook in Riverside, California, took a microenterprise home kitchen operation permit from the county, which has opted in, after an inspection of the kitchen. Sunday dinner plates, smothered chicken, greens and cornbread, are cooked and sold the same day, picked up or delivered, up to the permit's 30 meals a day. The cook keeps the plates hot until pickup and doesn't sell leftovers the next day. Meals made ahead and sold through the week are a different license, in meal prep business license.
Get the checker
Download the home plates 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
A permit has limits: 30 meals a day, 90 a week. A sign-up sheet and cash in a jar don't say how close a Sunday came to the limit, or which orders were picked up.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps each customer's order and each batch's lot, and what each plate 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 plates is a batch from its recipe, with its date and lot, and the lot goes on each order it fills.
True cost. Each plate 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 plate 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.