Requirements for Selling Food to Grocery Stores

To sell food to a grocery store, you need a product made somewhere the law allows for wholesale (usually a permitted commercial kitchen, not a home kitchen), registered with the FDA if your facility makes, packs or holds food; a label with the product's name, net quantity, ingredients, allergens and your business's name and address, plus Nutrition Facts unless you qualify for the small business exemption; and a UPC barcode. The store then asks for its own things: product liability insurance, vendor paperwork, a price list, lot codes and dates it can trace, and a delivery routine. Below is the full list, what each one is for, the price that's left for you once the store takes its margin, and a free checklist.

The short version

• Make it where wholesale is allowed. Cottage food rules often cover selling to people, not to stores, though some states, Hawaiʻi among them, now allow it.
• Register with the FDA if your facility makes, packs or holds food. Renew between October 1 and December 31 of every even-numbered year, so this year.
• Label it properly. Nutrition Facts are required unless the small business exemption applies.
• Put a UPC on every unit, and a case code if the store buys by the case.
• Expect to show insurance, fill in vendor forms, and agree payment terms.
• Put a lot code and date on everything, and know how you'd recall it.
• Work out your price backward from the shelf price.
• TaroStack keeps the lots, customers and deliveries behind all of it. More below.

What the law asks

The small business exemption from Nutrition Facts is narrower than people think. A product qualifies if the business has fewer than 100 full-time-equivalent employees and sells fewer than 100,000 units of that product a year in the US, it files a notice with FDA, and the label makes no nutrition, nutrient content or health claims. A business that isn't an importer, with fewer than 10 full-time-equivalent employees and under 10,000 units of the product a year, doesn't have to file the notice (21 CFR 101.9(j)(18)). "Low sodium" on the front of the bag ends the exemption.

How to work out the allergens from a recipe is in the allergen matrix template. This is general information, not legal advice; your state, the FDA and the store have the last word.

What the store asks

Barcodes come from GS1; what a small producer needs, and what it costs, is in GS1 barcodes for small food producers. A store's days-left minimum is in minimum remaining shelf life.

The price that's left for you

Work backward from the shelf. Windward Roots, the made-up taro business I use in these examples, wants its 5 oz chips on a neighborhood grocery's shelf at $6.99:

The margins are examples; ask the buyer and any distributor for theirs before you quote. The point is the direction: a price set forward from your cost ("it costs $2.10, so $3.50 sounds fair") leaves nothing for the store or a distributor, and the bag ends up on the shelf at a price nobody pays. Pricing in more detail, for bakeries, is in how to price baked goods for wholesale.

If your product is on FDA's traceability list

Some foods, on FDA's Food Traceability List, have extra record-keeping under the FSMA 204 traceability rule. FDA has proposed moving the compliance date to July 20, 2028, and Congress directed it not to enforce the rule before then; FDA says it will comply. A buyer may ask about it, so it's worth knowing whether your product is on the list: see the FSMA 204 compliance date.

Get the checklist

Download the grocery store checklist and price waterfall. It has the list above with a column to tick off, and the price waterfall from shelf to you, through a distributor or direct. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.

Price to the store  =shelf price * (1 - store margin)
Your price          =price to the store * (1 - distributor margin)
You keep            =your price - full cost - delivery

Where this stops working

The first store is paperwork once. The fifth is a weekly routine: five customers with their own order days, their own days-left minimum and their own invoices, and every delivery needing the right lots on it. When a store calls about a bag from three weeks ago, or a supplier recalls an ingredient, the question is which lots went where, and a folder of delivery notes answers it slowly.

How TaroStack does it

In TaroStack, each store is a customer, with its own shelf-life rule: set "at least 60 days left" once, and a batch made too early for it is flagged before you make it. Orders are sales orders, with a picking list and a delivery note, and every delivery records which lots went out, picked oldest date first among what that store will accept. So when a store or a supplier calls, one report shows every lot, every batch and every store, and what's still on your own shelves.

Lot labels print with the lot code, and with a GS1-128 barcode carrying the GTIN, the use-by date and the lot when the item has a GTIN. Batches are costed from what they actually used, so the $2.10 under your price stays true when costs move.

Customers, sales orders, lots, labels and recalls are on every plan, from $49 a month; recipes and batch costs are on Standard at $99. The first 30 days are free. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.

Questions people also ask

What do I need to sell my food product to a grocery store?

A product made where wholesale is allowed, FDA facility registration if it applies, a compliant label (with Nutrition Facts unless exempt), a UPC barcode, product liability insurance, vendor paperwork, a price list, and lot codes and dates on every unit.

Do I need FDA registration to sell to grocery stores?

If your facility manufactures, processes, packs or holds food, yes, unless it's exempt, such as a farm, a retail food establishment or a restaurant. Registration is renewed between October 1 and December 31 of every even-numbered year.

Do small food businesses need Nutrition Facts labels?

Not always. A product can be exempt if the business has fewer than 100 full-time-equivalent employees and sells fewer than 100,000 units of it a year, files a notice with FDA, and makes no nutrition claims; under 10 employees and 10,000 units, no notice is needed.

How much do grocery stores mark up products?

It varies by store and category. Work out your price backward from the shelf price, using the margin the buyer gives you and any distributor's margin, and check what's left covers your full cost.