Georgia rewrote its cottage food law with House Bill 398, in effect since July 1, 2025. A home kitchen can make foods that don't need refrigeration, breads, cakes, cookies, candy, jams, dill pickles, granola, roasted coffee, and sell them directly, online, by mail order, or to grocery stores, convenience stores and restaurants. There's no state license and no licensing fee any more, the Department of Agriculture sets no sales limit, and it inspects a home only to look into a complaint, an illness report or an emergency. In place of the old rules, the law asks for one disclosure: your business name, address and phone number, and a two-sentence statement in 10-point type. A county or city can still stop cottage food sales through stores in its area. In the example below, a Macon baker sorts six products and starts selling to a grocery. Below are the rules, the label, selling through stores, the example, and a free checklist.
The short version
- Make non-potentially hazardous foods at your home; nonalcoholic drinks count, but not raw milk or anything with cannabis.
- No license from the Department of Agriculture and no fee, since July 1, 2025.
- No limit on gross sales or units.
- Sell directly, online and by mail order, or to retail stores and restaurants.
- A store selling it shelves it apart from other food, with a sign that it's exempt from state inspection.
- A county or city can opt out of sales through stores; zoning and business licenses still apply.
- Label: name, address or ID number, phone, and "This product was produced at a residential property that is exempt from state inspection. This product may contain allergens."
- TaroStack keeps each batch's lot and which stores it went to. More below.
The rules
| Rule | What HB 398 says |
|---|---|
| What's allowed | Non-potentially hazardous food or nonalcoholic beverages, made and packaged at the producer's residence |
| What isn't | Alcoholic drinks, foods with cannabis, raw milk, anything needing temperature control |
| Sales | Directly to a person, including online and by mail order, or to retail food sales establishments such as grocery stores and restaurants |
| License | None from the department (its FAQ: no license, no licensing fee) |
| Inspection | Only to investigate a complaint, a foodborne illness report or a public health emergency, scheduled in advance except in emergencies |
| Penalty | A written warning first, then up to $75 for each later violation |
| Local rules | A county or city can ban sales through third-party vendors by ordinance; otherwise it can't regulate cottage food |
| Other laws | Federal law, tax law and other states' laws still apply |
The law is O.C.G.A. 26-2-470 to 26-2-478 (HB 398), and the department's HB 398 FAQ explains the changes. Its cottage food FAQ adds that there's no limit on sales and that a farmers market can still require its own license, and its program page still asks operators to take ANSI-accredited food handler training. This is general information, not legal advice.
The label
| Line | What it says |
|---|---|
| Business | Your business name |
| Address | Your address, or the identification number the department gives on written request |
| Phone | Your telephone number |
| Statement | "This product was produced at a residential property that is exempt from state inspection. This product may contain allergens." At least 10-point |
The information goes on the package's label, on the container for food sold from bulk, on a placard where unpackaged food is sold, or on the webpage for online sales. For phone and custom orders, you can tell the customer instead, and have the details ready if they ask. The department's earlier guidance also asked for the product name, ingredients by weight, net weight or volume, and allergens; adding them costs a line or two and keeps the label right whatever the new rules ask. How to write the allergen line is in allergen matrix template.
Selling through stores
HB 398's biggest change: a grocery store, convenience store or restaurant can buy cottage food and sell it, and the law treats it as an approved source. The store keeps cottage food in its own section or display case, labeled as exempt from state inspection, and posts the department's sign. Before the first delivery, check whether your county or city has passed an opt-out ordinance; where one exists, sales through stores stop there, and direct sales go on.
An example: a Macon baker
Peach Belt Bakehouse, a made-up home baker in Macon, Georgia, I use in these examples, sells at a Saturday market, takes online orders, and now sells pound cakes to a neighborhood grocery:
| Product | Allowed? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Pecan pralines | Yes | Confections |
| Pound cake | Yes | Baked goods |
| Dill pickles | Yes | Named in the law's list |
| Peach jam | Yes | Jams, jellies and preserves |
| Red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting | No | The frosting needs refrigeration |
| Pimento cheese | No | Dairy needs refrigeration |
The grocery keeps the pound cakes on their own rack with a cottage food sign. With the store, the market and online orders, Peach Belt sold $39,000 by September, and Georgia sets no limit to watch. How a home food business starts is in how to start a cottage food business, and which foods need refrigeration in TCS foods list.
Get the checklist
Download the Georgia cottage food checklist. Three sheets: the label, each line with a column for yours; products, each with whether it's allowed and why; and sales by month, with no cap set. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
Selling to a grocery means standing orders, deliveries and invoices, and if the department looks into a complaint about one cake, the question is which batch it came from and which stores got the rest. A notebook has the market days, not the deliveries.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps each batch's lot and which stores it went to.
Each batch dated. A batch of pound cakes gets a lot with its production and best-before dates, and lot labels print with it.
Stores as customers. The grocery is a customer with its own orders, and each order records the lots it got, so one recall report shows every store and customer a batch reached.
Market sales too. TaroStack connects to Square for market sales, so stores, market and online sit together.
| The job | Notebook | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| A batch's date | Written on the box | The batch's lot and dates |
| Which stores got a batch | Not recorded | One recall report |
| The grocery's invoices | Written by hand | From its orders |
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.