Montana has two separate ways to sell homemade food. A cottage food operation registers once with the county sanitarian for $40, submits each recipe by weight and each label, and then sells foods on the state's approved list, breads, cakes, cookies, fruit pies, jams, fudge, honey, face to face anywhere in Montana, with a label in 11-point type. The Montana Local Food Choice Act, passed in 2021, goes further: no license, label or inspection at all, for almost any homemade food, refrigerated food included, as long as you sell to an informed end consumer for home consumption, from your home or at a traditional community event like a farmers market, wedding or school event. Both stay inside Montana, and neither allows mail or shipping. In the example below, a Kalispell baker sorts six products across the two. Below are the two paths, the foods, the label, the example, and a free checklist.
The short version
- Cottage food registration: $40 once, with your county sanitarian; recipes by weight and a label for every product.
- Adding recipes or moving means registering again and paying again.
- Registration covers foods on the approved list that don't need refrigeration.
- Local Food Choice Act: no license, label or inspection; most homemade foods, including refrigerated ones.
- Under the Act, tell every buyer the food isn't licensed, permitted, certified, packaged, labeled or inspected.
- The Act allows sales from home or at traditional community events, not roadside stands.
- Both: face to face, in Montana; no mail, shipping, delivery services, restaurants or wholesale.
- Cottage food label: name and address, product, ingredients with sub-ingredients, net quantity, allergens, and "Made in a home kitchen that is not subject to retail food establishment regulations or inspections."
- TaroStack keeps each batch's lot and the recipe it used. More below.
The two paths
| Cottage food operation | Montana Local Food Choice Act | |
|---|---|---|
| Paperwork | Register with the county environmental health office; $40 one time; recipes by weight and labels for approval | None |
| Foods | The approved list: shelf-stable, no refrigeration needed | Homemade food, including potentially hazardous food |
| Label | Required, with the 11-point statement | No set label; tell the buyer it isn't inspected |
| Where you sell | Face to face: delivery, farmers markets, flea markets, craft bazaars, fairs | From your home, or at a traditional community event |
| Roadside or parking lot | Allowed by the cottage food rules, subject to local permits and the owner's permission | Not allowed |
| Shipping and mail | Not allowed | Not allowed |
| Inspection | Only on a complaint or illness | Exempt from inspection |
DPHHS's Cottage Food Operation Guidance and Registration and FAQ cover the registration, and its Local Food Choice Act guidance covers the Act. If you only sell items on the farmers market exemption list, and only at farmers markets, you don't need to register. This is general information, not legal advice.
The approved cottage food list
| Allowed | Notes |
|---|---|
| Breads, rolls, biscuits, quick breads, muffins, cakes, pastries, scones, cookies, bars, crackers | Baked in an oven |
| Pies | Not custard pies, unbaked fresh fruit pies, or pies needing refrigeration |
| Cereals, granola, trail and snack mixes, nuts | |
| Jams, jellies, preserves, fruit butters | Standardized; at least 55% sugar from listed fruits, others assessed |
| Dried fruit; dry herbs, seasonings, soup mixes, teas, coffee | |
| Popcorn, popcorn balls, cotton candy; fudge and cooked candies; molded chocolate from commercial melts | Not needing refrigeration |
| Honey |
Other products may be approved case by case. Which foods need refrigeration is in TCS foods list.
The label
| Line | What it says |
|---|---|
| Operation | Name, address, city, state and ZIP |
| Product | The name of the product |
| Ingredients | Highest weight to lowest, sub-ingredients in parentheses, such as butter (milk, salt) |
| Net quantity | Weight, count or volume |
| Allergens | In the ingredients or a Contains line |
| Statement | "Made in a home kitchen that is not subject to retail food establishment regulations or inspections." 11-point or larger |
Every cottage food is packaged and labeled; a wedding cake that can't be packaged carries the label information on the invoice delivered with it. How to work out the allergens in a recipe is in allergen matrix template.
An example: a Kalispell baker
Flathead Pantry, a made-up home baker in Kalispell, Montana, I use in these examples, is a registered cottage food operation and also sells some foods under the Local Food Choice Act:
| Product | Allowed? | Which path |
|---|---|---|
| Huckleberry scones | Yes | Registered: pastries and scones |
| Fudge | Yes | Registered: cooked candy |
| Cheesecake | Local Food Choice Act only | Not on the list; sold to informed buyers at home or a community event |
| Sales from a roadside stand | Cottage food only | The Act ties outside sales to community events |
| Pasties with beef | Ask first | Meat follows the Department of Livestock's guidance |
| Scones mailed to Wyoming | No | Face to face, in Montana |
Adding a new scone flavor meant a new recipe, a new label, and another $40 registration. Summer tourists carry the year: by September Flathead Pantry had sold $27,400. How a home food business starts is in how to start a cottage food business.
Get the checklist
Download the Montana cottage food checklist. Three sheets: the label, each line with a column for yours; products, each with whether it's allowed and under which path; and sales by month. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
Montana registers recipes: each variation, by weight, approved before you sell it. A baker with a dozen flavors and two paths has to know which recipe each batch used and which path each product sells under.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps each batch's lot and the recipe it used.
Recipes by version. Recipes are versioned with ingredient weights, so the recipe you registered is a version on a date, and each batch records which one it was made from.
Each batch dated. Each batch gets a lot with its production and best-before dates, and lot labels print with it.
Where it went. Market and delivered orders record the lots each customer got, so one recall report shows where a batch went; TaroStack connects to Square for market sales.
| The job | Notebook | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| The registered recipe | A copy of the application | A recipe version with weights |
| A batch's date | Written on the bag | The batch's lot and dates |
| Who got a batch | Not recorded | One recall report |
Lots, batches, versioned recipes 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.