A sandwich with meat, cheese or mayonnaise needs refrigeration, so it isn't a cottage food. California's cottage law covers only nonpotentially hazardous foods, and Michigan's only foods that don't need temperature control: under either, the cookie can come from your home kitchen, but the sandwich can't. What can work is a home kitchen permit, a newer kind of license for selling meals from home. In California it's called a microenterprise home kitchen operation, and each city or county decides whether to allow them. Where it's allowed, the health department inspects your kitchen, reviews your written procedures and issues a permit, and you can sell food made and served the same day, eaten at your home or picked up or delivered, up to 30 meals a day and 90 a week, with gross sales up to $100,000 a year, adjusted for inflation, sold only to consumers. Utah's law offers a similar permit through local health departments, with no eating on site. In the example below, a California home cook sells weekday lunches under the permit and learns where the weekly limit bites.
The short version
- Sandwiches with meat, cheese or mayo need refrigeration: not cottage food.
- California and Michigan cottage food: cookies yes, sandwiches no.
- California: a microenterprise home kitchen permit, if your city or county allows them.
- California's limits: same day, 30 meals a day, 90 a week, $100,000 a year adjusted for inflation.
- Utah: a home kitchen permit from the local health department; no eating on site.
- Sell only to the people eating; never to a café or store.
- TaroStack keeps each day's orders and what went into them. More below.
Sandwiches, by route
| Route | Sandwiches? | Limits |
|---|---|---|
| California cottage food | No | Nonpotentially hazardous foods only |
| California home kitchen operation | Yes, if your city or county allows it | Same day; 30 meals a day, 90 a week; $100,000 a year |
| Utah home kitchen permit | Yes | Same day, or 72 hours with logs; not eaten on site |
| Michigan cottage food | No | Foods that don't need temperature control |
California's cottage food classes are in California cottage food law, Utah's permit for hot food in can you sell pizza from home, and meals sold ahead in meal prep business license.
The rules
| Rule | Where |
|---|---|
| California: who decides | A city or county authorizes home kitchen operations by ordinance or resolution (HSC 114367) |
| California: the operation | Same day; on site, pickup or delivery; 30 meals a day, 90 a week; $100,000 a year adjusted for inflation; one employee outside the household; only to consumers (HSC 113825) |
| California: the permit | After an initial inspection, with written procedures for foods, handling, cleaning and holding temperatures (HSC 114367.2) |
| California: cottage food | Nonpotentially hazardous foods (HSC 113758) |
| Utah | Local health department permit; same day or 72 hours with logs; no eating on site; only to consumers (Utah Code 26B-7-416) |
| Michigan | Not time/temperature control for safety (MCL 289.1105(k)) |
This is general information, not legal advice.
An example: weekday lunches
Sunny Block Lunch, a made-up home cook in a California county that allows home kitchen operations, sells sandwich lunches to people working nearby, each ordering their own through the cook's site by 10 a.m. for delivery at noon in insulated bags. A lunch is a sandwich, a side and a cookie, $14. The first full week:
| Day | Meals |
|---|---|
| Monday | 16 |
| Tuesday | 18 |
| Wednesday | 20 |
| Thursday | 18 |
| Friday | 24 |
| Week | 96 |
No day passed 30, but the week came to 96, six over the 90-meal limit. Friday orders now close at 18, or when the week reaches 90, whichever comes first. At 90 lunches a week for 50 weeks, sales come to $63,000, under the $100,000 line. A nearby café asked to sell the sandwiches from its case; the permit allows sales only to the people eating them, so that waits for a commercial kitchen. What goes into a lunch's cost is in meal prep business plan.
Get the checker
Download the home sandwich checker. Three sheets. Menu: each item, whether it needs refrigeration and has meat, and how California's cottage food law and home kitchen operations, Utah's permit and Michigan's cottage food law treat it. Week: meals each day against 30 a day and 90 a week, and the year's sales against the limit. Rules: 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
Ninety meals a week is a cap you can only keep if you count as orders come in. On a sheet of paper, Friday's 19th order gets accepted because nobody added up Monday to Thursday.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps each day's orders and what went into them.
Orders. Each lunch order goes in for its delivery day, so the week's count is a list of orders.
Recipes by weight. Each sandwich is a recipe, with its bread, meat, cheese and sauce by weight.
Batches by lot. The morning's prep records which lots of turkey and bread it used, so a question about one lunch leads to its ingredients.
| The job | Paper | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| The week's orders | A sheet by the phone | Orders by delivery day |
| What a lunch costs | A guess | From the recipes |
| Which turkey went into Friday's lunches | Not recorded | Batches by lot |
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.