Florida lets a home kitchen make and sell cottage food products, foods that don't need time or temperature control for safety, without a state food permit, as long as annual gross sales stay at or under $250,000. Sales can be in person, at events, online or by mail order, delivered by hand or by mail, but never wholesale: no selling to shops or cafés to resell. Every product is prepackaged and labeled, including one exact sentence in 10-point type: "Made in a cottage food operation that is not subject to Florida's food safety regulations." Cities and counties can't ban or regulate cottage food, though home-business rules still apply. In the example below, a Pensacola baker sorts six products and turns down a café. Below are the rules, the label, shipping, the example, and a free checklist.
The short version
- Cottage food: food that isn't time or temperature controlled for safety, made at a residence.
- No food permit from the state if you follow the law and stay at or under $250,000 a year in gross sales.
- The $250,000 counts all cottage food sales, everywhere, whoever is involved.
- Sell in person, at events, online or by mail order; deliver by hand, to an event venue, or by mail.
- No wholesale: shops, cafés and restaurants can't buy to resell.
- Prepackaged and labeled, with the exact Florida statement in at least 10-point type.
- Store what you sell at the home; cities and counties can't regulate it beyond home-business rules.
- TaroStack keeps each batch's lot and the year's sales from the orders. More below.
The rules
| Rule | What section 500.80 says |
|---|---|
| Permit | Exempt from the state's food permit if the operation follows the section and stays within the sales limit |
| Sales limit | Annual gross sales of cottage food products of $250,000 or less, counting all sales at any location |
| Proof | Written documentation of annual gross sales to the department on request |
| Online and mail order | Allowed; delivered in person, to an event venue, or by the Postal Service or a commercial mail service |
| Wholesale | Not allowed |
| Storage | Only products stored at the operation's premises |
| Local rules | Preempted to the state, except the home-based business rules in section 559.955 |
| Complaints | The department inspects only after a complaint |
The section is 500.80, and a cottage food product is defined in 500.03 as food that isn't time or temperature controlled for safety. Which foods are TCS is in TCS foods list. This is general information, not legal advice.
The label
| Line | What it says |
|---|---|
| Name and address | The cottage food operation's |
| Product | The name of the product |
| Ingredients | In descending order by weight |
| Net quantity | Net weight or net volume |
| Allergens | As federal labeling requires |
| Nutrition | Only if you make a nutrition claim |
| Statement | "Made in a cottage food operation that is not subject to Florida's food safety regulations." At least 10-point type, in a color that contrasts with the background |
How to write the allergen line is in allergen matrix template.
Shipping
Florida's section allows delivery by the Postal Service or a commercial mail service and doesn't itself stop at the state line. Shipping to a customer in another state, though, brings that state's rules and federal ones into it, so a Florida cottage food operation shipping out of state should check the receiving state first.
An example: a Pensacola baker
Gulf Breeze Sweets, a made-up home baker in Pensacola, Florida, I use in these examples, sells at a Saturday market and ships online orders around Florida:
| Product | Allowed? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Key lime cookies | Yes | Not TCS |
| Key lime pie | No | A custard pie needs refrigeration |
| Mango jam | Yes | Not TCS |
| Cuban bread | Yes | Not TCS |
| Flan | No | Custard |
| Cookies for a café to resell | No | No wholesale |
A café asked to stock the key lime cookies; Florida's law doesn't allow wholesale, so the answer was no, and the café's customers order online instead. By September Gulf Breeze had sold $122,300, about half of the $250,000 limit. How a cottage food business starts is in how to start a cottage food business.
Get the checklist
Download the Florida cottage food checklist. Three sheets: the label, each line the law asks for with a column for yours; products, each with whether it's allowed and why; and sales by month against the $250,000 limit, red past 90%. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
Florida can ask for written documentation of a year's gross sales. A baker with market cash, online orders and shipped boxes in different places has to add them up when asked, and a notebook makes that a weekend's work.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps each batch's lot and the year's sales from the orders.
Each batch dated. A batch of cookies gets a lot with its production and best-before dates, and lot labels print with it.
Orders, wherever they ship. Online and market orders are recorded with the lots each customer got, so one recall report shows where a batch went; TaroStack connects to Square for market sales.
The year's sales. Sales come from the orders, so the documentation Florida can ask for is already there, and every list exports to CSV.
| The job | Notebook | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| A batch's date | Written on the bag | The batch's lot and dates |
| Where a batch went | Not recorded | Recorded with each order |
| The year's gross sales | Added up when asked | From the records, exported to CSV |
Lots, batches, orders 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.