Oklahoma's cottage food law is the Homemade Food Freedom Act (2 O.S. 5-4.1 and following), rewritten in 2021. Food made at your residence, drinks included, is exempt from all licensing by the Department of Health and the Department of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry, as long as gross annual sales stay under $75,000. Shelf-stable food can be sold in person, online or by phone, shipped by a parcel carrier, and sold through grocery stores, farm stands and other vendors that post a placard. Even food that needs refrigeration, cheesecake, cooked noodles, is allowed, if you take an approved food safety course and sell and deliver it yourself. What's out: meat, poultry, seafood, alcohol, raw milk and cannabis. Every product carries your name, phone and address, ingredients, allergens, and a 10-point statement. In the example below, a Stillwater baker sorts six products. Below are the rules, the label, the example, and a free checklist.
The short version
- No license or inspection from the state, under $75,000 in gross annual sales counted at every location.
- Made in a residence; drinks count; no meat, poultry, seafood, alcohol, unpasteurized milk or cannabis.
- Shelf-stable food: sell yourself, in person or remotely, or through an agent or store with a placard; deliver yourself, through the store, or by parcel carrier.
- Food that needs refrigeration: take an approved food safety course first; you sell it and deliver it yourself.
- Label: name, phone, physical address, description, ingredients, allergens, and "This product was produced in a private residence that is exempt from government licensing and inspection."
- On a complaint, the Department of Agriculture can ask for your sales records and training certificate.
- TaroStack keeps each batch's lot and the year's sales from the orders. More below.
The rules
| Rule | What the Act says |
|---|---|
| Limit | A home food establishment has gross annual sales of less than $75,000, counting every location |
| Not allowed | Alcoholic beverages, unpasteurized milk, cannabis, seafood, meat and poultry products |
| Shelf-stable food: selling | By you directly, in person or by internet or phone; or by an agent or a third-party vendor such as a grocery store, farm stand, farmers market, buying club, craft fair or flea market, with a placard |
| Shelf-stable food: delivery | By you or your agent to the consumer or the vendor; or by a vendor or a parcel carrier |
| Refrigerated food | Sold by you directly, in person or remotely, and delivered by you directly, after approved food safety training of up to eight hours, online |
| Interstate | Food packaged and distributed in interstate commerce also follows federal law |
| Complaints | ODAFF can ask for proof of training, verify gross sales, and check labels and delivery |
| Penalty | A misdemeanor with a fine of up to $300 |
The Act is in enrolled HB 1032, and the agencies' guidance memo gives examples: honey, jams, breads, cookies, cakes and spice mixes as shelf-stable; pies, pickled vegetables and salsas as possibly shelf-stable; cheesecake, cooked vegetables and cooked noodles as refrigerated foods the Act allows. This is general information, not legal advice.
The label
| Line | What it says |
|---|---|
| Producer | Your name and phone number |
| Address | The physical address where it was produced |
| Description | What the product is, such as "hot relish" |
| Ingredients | In descending order of proportion |
| Allergens | A statement of any of the common allergens present |
| Statement | "This product was produced in a private residence that is exempt from government licensing and inspection." At least 10-point |
The information goes on the package, on a bulk container, on a placard and a card the customer can carry for unpackaged food, or on the webpage for online sales, with a label on or in every shipped item. A store selling your food posts a placard reading "This product was produced in a private residence that is exempt from government licensing and inspection. This product may contain allergens." How to work out the allergens in a recipe is in allergen matrix template.
An example: a Stillwater baker
Red Dirt Bakehouse, a made-up home baker in Stillwater, Oklahoma, I use in these examples, sells at a farmers market, ships around the state, and stocks a grocery in town:
| Product | Allowed? | How |
|---|---|---|
| Sourdough through the grocery | Yes | Shelf-stable; the grocery posts the placard |
| Fried fruit pies | Yes | Shelf-stable, if the filling makes it so |
| Cheesecake | Yes | Needs refrigeration: training, then sold and delivered by the baker |
| Hot relish | Test first | Acidified; pH 4.6 or below makes it shelf-stable |
| Chicken-fried steak plates | No | No meat or poultry |
| Catfish dip | No | No seafood |
The baker took the online food handler course before adding cheesecakes, and drives them to customers; the bread ships by parcel. By September Red Dirt had sold $42,800, 57% of the $75,000 line. 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 Oklahoma homemade food checklist. Three sheets: the label, each line with a column for yours; products, each with whether it's allowed and how; and sales by month against $75,000, 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
On a complaint, the Department of Agriculture can ask for written documentation of the year's gross sales, counted across the grocery, the market and shipped orders. Three channels, one total, produced when asked.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps each batch's lot and the year's sales from the orders.
Each batch dated. A batch of cheesecakes 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.
The year's sales. Grocery, shipped and market orders sit together, with Square connected for market sales, so the documentation ODAFF can ask for comes from the records; every list exports to CSV.
| The job | Notebook | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| A batch's date | Written on the box | The batch's lot and dates |
| Who got a batch | Not recorded | One recall report |
| The year's gross sales | Added up when asked | From the orders, 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.