North Carolina has no cottage food law by that name. A home kitchen that makes food to sell goes through the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services' home processor program: before the first sale, an inspector visits the kitchen. The inspection is free, and no permit is issued; you get the report and a Notice of Inspection. The program treats a home processor as a food manufacturer under the federal good manufacturing practices, so the rules are stricter than most states' cottage food laws: no pets that ever come indoors, a separate sink for handwashing, a water bill or a well test, a written business plan, and lab tests for sauces, pickles and moist cakes. In return, North Carolina allows things many states don't: acidified foods such as pickles and barbecue sauce, with a process authority letter, and wholesale to stores and restaurants. In the example below, an Alamance County cook sorts six products and sends three to the lab. Below are the steps, the foods, the label, the example, and a free checklist.
The short version
- Every home food business in North Carolina has its kitchen inspected by NCDA&CS before selling; there's no fee and no permit; you get a Notice of Inspection.
- Only shelf-stable, low-risk foods, made in the home's own kitchen, not a garage or outbuilding.
- No pet can come into the home, even at night.
- Handwashing at a separate sink; the kitchen sink is for food only.
- Pickles, sauces and moist cakes may need pH and water activity tests, and a process authority letter.
- Sell from home, at markets, and wholesale to stores and restaurants.
- Labels with name, address, net weight in ounces and grams, ingredients, and allergens, when food is packaged, wholesaled or shipped.
- TaroStack keeps each batch's lot, test results and the stores it went to. More below.
The steps
| Step | What NCDA&CS asks |
|---|---|
| 1. The product | Low-risk, shelf-stable foods only |
| 2. Pets | No pet that comes into the home at any time |
| 3. The kitchen | Meets 21 CFR 117 subpart B: cleanable surfaces, no pests, hot and cold water, shielded lights, thermometers in the fridge and freezer |
| 4. Zoning | Check with your county or city planning department, and your HOA or landlord |
| 5. Water | A recent water bill, or a well test for coliform and E. coli from a certified lab, within a year |
| 6. Business plan | Each product by name, ingredients and suppliers, storage, production flow, transport, where you'll sell |
| 7. Labels | As below |
| 8. Application | By email or mail; an inspector makes contact in about 8 to 12 weeks |
All eight steps are on the department's home processor page (NCDA&CS). The kitchen standard is the federal current good manufacturing practice, the same one any food plant follows. This is general information, not legal advice.
What you can make
| Allowed | Not allowed |
|---|---|
| Baked goods that don't need refrigeration | Refrigerated or frozen products |
| Jams, jellies and preserves | Low-acid canned foods |
| Candy, freeze-dried candy | Dairy products |
| Dry mixes and spices | Seafood |
| Some drinks, such as iced tea, coffee, lemonade | Bottled water and juice |
| Some sauces, after evaluation | Cream or cream cheese filled bakery products, cheesecake |
| Acid and acidified foods, such as pickles and barbecue sauce |
Products that may need testing for pH or water activity: acid and acidified foods, dressings and sauces, homemade cream cheese frostings, moist breads and cakes, some pies. The lab gives you a process authority letter to send with the application, and an acidified food maker may also need the Acidified Food Course. How the readings are taken is in pH testing for acidified foods.
The label
| Line | What it says |
|---|---|
| Product | The product name |
| Manufacturer | Your name and address |
| Net weight | In ounces or pounds, with the gram equivalent |
| Ingredients | In order of predominance by weight, with sub-ingredients in parentheses |
| Allergens | In the ingredients or a "Contains" statement right after them |
A label is required when food is packaged for self-service, sold wholesale, or shipped. Food handed to the customer on demand, picked up at your home, delivered to them, or passed across a market table, can go without one, as long as ingredient information is available on request. A nutrition panel is needed only if you make a claim such as "low fat".
An example: an Alamance County cook
Haw River Kitchen, a made-up home processor near Graham, North Carolina, I use in these examples, sells at a farmers market and wants to wholesale pickles to two country stores:
| Product | Allowed? | What it needs |
|---|---|---|
| Moravian cookies | Yes | Shelf-stable |
| Pound cake | Test first | Water activity and pH, as a moist cake |
| Bread-and-butter pickles | Test first | Acidified: a process authority letter, maybe the course |
| Vinegar barbecue sauce | Test first | Evaluated for shelf stability |
| Sweet potato pie | No | Needs refrigeration |
| Cheesecake | No | High-risk; commercial only |
The household cat was the bigger question: a pet that comes indoors at any time disqualifies the kitchen, so the cat moved in with the owner's sister before the application went in. If the stores' pickle orders outgrow a home kitchen, renting hours in a shared one is the next step, priced in commissary kitchen cost. How a home food business starts is in how to start a cottage food business.
Get the checklist
Download the North Carolina home processor checklist. Three sheets: the label, each line with a column for yours; products, each with whether it's allowed and what it needs; 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
An acidified product's safety rests on its tested recipe and each batch's pH. With wholesale stores, a question about one jar means knowing which batch it was, what the pH read, and which stores got the rest of that batch.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps each batch's lot, test results and the stores it went to.
Each batch dated. A batch of pickles gets a lot with its production and best-before dates, and lot labels print with it.
Readings on the batch. Fields of your own on the batch record hold each batch's pH reading and the process authority letter's reference, and recipes are versioned, so each batch records the recipe version it was made from.
Stores as customers. Each country store has its own orders, and each order records the lots it got, so one recall report shows where a batch went.
| The job | Notebook | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| A batch's pH | A log sheet | A field on the batch record |
| The recipe it was tested on | Remembered | A recipe version on a date |
| Which stores got a batch | Not recorded | One recall report |
Lots, batches, versioned recipes and batch records with fields of your own 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.