Soup is one of the hardest foods to sell from a home kitchen. A pot of soup is a cooked food with plenty of water and little acid, which the FDA Food Code treats as time/temperature control for safety food: it has to be kept cold or hot. Cottage food laws like Michigan's and Minnesota's cover only foods that don't need that, so in those states fresh or frozen soup from home is out. Canning doesn't solve it: a canned vegetable or meat soup is a low-acid canned food, which federal rules regulate because of botulism, and Michigan's law excludes it by name. Two things do fit. A dry soup mix, beans, lentils and spices in a jar, is shelf-stable, and Michigan's law names dry mixes. And North Dakota allows cottage foods that need refrigeration if they're kept and delivered frozen, with safe handling instructions and a statement that they were kept frozen, though not soups made with meat or poultry, since its law bars uninspected meat products. In the example below, a North Dakota home cook works out which soups can go to a winter market.
The short version
- Soup needs refrigeration, so it's a time/temperature control for safety food.
- Michigan and Minnesota: no fresh, frozen or canned soup from a home kitchen.
- Canned soup is a low-acid canned food; Michigan and Minnesota exclude it.
- Dry soup mixes are shelf-stable and fit.
- North Dakota: frozen soup allowed, with safe handling instructions and a frozen statement.
- No meat or chicken soups under North Dakota's law.
- TaroStack keeps each pot as a batch with its date and lot, and what's in the freezer. More below.
Soup, by kind
| Soup | Michigan | Minnesota | North Dakota |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vegetable soup, frozen | No | No | Frozen, with labels |
| Chicken or beef soup, frozen | No | No | No: meat |
| Dry soup mix in a jar | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Home-canned vegetable soup | No | No | Not named in the law: ask first |
North Dakota's law in full is in North Dakota cottage food laws, and why cooked foods need temperature control in TCS foods list.
The rules
| Rule | Where |
|---|---|
| North Dakota | Cottage 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; the home kitchen sign or label (N.D.C.C. 23-09.5-02) |
| Michigan | Not time/temperature control for safety; dry mixes included; low-acid and acidified canned foods excluded (MCL 289.1105(k)) |
| Minnesota | Food that isn't potentially hazardous; home-canned foods only at pH 4.6 or lower or water activity 0.85 or less (Minn. Stat. 28A.152) |
| Why soup is different | Cooked animal and plant foods are time/temperature control for safety unless pH and water activity say otherwise (Food Code 2022, 1-201.10) |
This is general information, not legal advice.
An example: soups for a winter market
Souris Valley Soups, a made-up home cook in Minot, North Dakota, wanted a table at the winter farmers market. Its list, checked against North Dakota's law:
| Soup | Needs refrigeration? | Meat? | How it's sold |
|---|---|---|---|
| Butternut squash, frozen quart | Yes | No | Frozen, safe handling label |
| Minestrone, frozen quart | Yes | No | Frozen, safe handling label |
| Chicken noodle, frozen quart | Yes | Yes | Not sold: uninspected poultry product |
| Split pea soup mix, jar | No | No | Room temperature, with the sign |
| Vegetable soup, home-canned | No | No | Not sold: the cook didn't want to can low-acid soup |
The frozen quarts go from the pot to the freezer the day they're made, ride to the market in a freezer chest, and carry the label: "Kept and delivered frozen. Keep frozen. Thaw in the refrigerator and heat to boiling." The chicken noodle came off the list, replaced by a white bean and kale soup. The frozen food rules in general are in license to sell frozen food.
Get the checker
Download the home soup checker. Two sheets: your soups, whether each needs refrigeration, contains meat or poultry, or is home-canned and low-acid, and how Michigan's, Minnesota's and North Dakota's cottage food laws treat it; 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 chest freezer of quart containers from six different pots looks the same in February. Which pot each quart came from, and which to sell first, is on a strip of tape, if it's anywhere.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps each pot as a batch with its date and lot, and what's in the freezer.
Each pot a batch. A pot of minestrone is a batch from its recipe, with its date, lot and how many quarts it made.
First-expired-first-out. Sales take the oldest quarts first by default.
Counts with no signal. The freezer can be counted on a phone, even in a market hall with no signal.
| The job | Freezer of quarts | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Which pot a quart came from | Tape and marker | Lots by batch |
| Which quarts to sell first | A guess | First-expired-first-out |
| What's in the freezer | A guess | A count on a phone, offline |
Recipes, batches, lots and counts 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.