South Dakota's cottage food rules, SDCL 34-18-35 to 34-18-38, exempt food made at your primary residence from licensing: baked goods, other foods that don't need temperature control, and home-canned goods at pH 4.6 or below. Since 2022, a producer who completes food safety training (online, every five years) can also sell foods that need refrigeration: kuchen, cheesecake, soft and cream pies, sauces and pesto, and fermented foods kept cold, plus frozen fruit and produce. The catch is how you sell: in person, at your home, a farmers market, a roadside stand or another temporary venue, with you or someone in your household handing it over. Every product carries a label with nine items, including the date made and a disclaimer. In the example below, a Spearfish baker sorts six products. Below are the rules, the training, the label, the example, and a free checklist.
The short version
- No license or fee for food made at your primary residence and sold as the law describes.
- Baked goods and other non-temperature-controlled foods need nothing more than the label.
- Canned goods: pH 4.6 or below or water activity 0.85 or below, with food safety training every five years or a process authority's written recipe verification.
- With the training, also: kuchen, cheesecake, soft and cream pies, sauces and pesto at 41°F or below; non-heat-processed fermented food at 41°F or below; frozen produce at 0°F or below.
- Sell in your physical presence: home, farmers market, roadside stand or other temporary venue.
- You or someone living with you hands the food to the buyer; no shipping, stores or resale.
- Label: product, producer, addresses, phone, date made, ingredients, a keep-cold directive when needed, and the disclaimer.
- TaroStack keeps each batch's lot and date, and its readings. More below.
The rules
| Rule | What SDCL 34-18 says |
|---|---|
| Exempt foods | Non-temperature-controlled food, home-processed canned goods, baked goods, and foods allowed after training |
| Canned goods | pH 4.6 or less or water activity 0.85 or less; training every five years, or a process authority's verification of each recipe |
| After training | Non-heat-processed fermented food at 41°F or below; kuchen and TCS baked goods, sauces and pesto at 41°F or below; frozen produce at 0°F or below |
| Training records | Kept to show the training was completed on time |
| Where | In the seller's physical presence: primary residence, farmers market, roadside stand, other temporary venue |
| Delivery | The seller, or someone living at the seller's home, personally hands over the food at the sale |
| Label | Nine items, below |
The rules are SDCL 34-18-36, 34-18-36.1, 34-18-37 and 34-18-38, last changed in 2022. This is general information, not legal advice.
What the training adds
| Food | Without training | With training |
|---|---|---|
| Baked goods that don't need refrigeration | Yes | Yes |
| Canned goods at pH 4.6 or below | With a process authority's verification | Yes |
| Kuchen, cheesecake, soft and cream pies | No | Yes, at 41°F or below |
| Sauces and pesto needing refrigeration | No | Yes, at 41°F or below |
| Fermented food, not heat-processed | No | Yes, at 41°F or below |
| Home-processed frozen fruit and produce | No | Yes, at 0°F or below |
The Department of Health approves the training, which is online. Which foods need refrigeration is in TCS foods list, and how pH is checked in pH testing for acidified foods.
The label
| Line | What it says |
|---|---|
| Product | Name of the product |
| Producer | Name of the producer |
| Addresses | Physical address of production, and mailing address |
| Phone | The producer's telephone number |
| Date | The date it was made or processed |
| Ingredients | The ingredients |
| Cold foods | A directive to keep refrigerated or frozen, for foods sold under the training rule |
| Disclaimer | "This product was not produced in a commercial kitchen. It has been home-processed in a kitchen that may also process common food allergens such as tree nuts, peanuts, eggs, soy, wheat, milk, fish, and crustacean shellfish." |
How to work out the allergens in a recipe is in allergen matrix template.
An example: a Spearfish baker
Black Hills Pantry, a made-up home baker in Spearfish, South Dakota, I use in these examples, sells at a farmers market and from a roadside stand in summer:
| Product | Allowed? | How |
|---|---|---|
| Chokecherry jelly | Yes | Canned at pH 4.6 or below, after training |
| Custard kuchen | Yes, with training | Kept at 41°F or below, labeled to keep refrigerated |
| Sauerkraut, not heat-processed | Yes, with training | Kept at 41°F or below |
| Frozen chokecherries | Yes, with training | Kept at 0°F or below |
| Pies shipped by mail | No | Sold in person only |
| Bread for a coffee shop to resell | No | Sold in person only |
The baker took the online training in 2022, which made the kuchen legal to sell; the training comes due again in 2027. By September Black Hills Pantry had sold $27,000. How a home food business starts is in how to start a cottage food business.
Get the checklist
Download the South Dakota home-processed 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. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
Every label carries the date the product was made, canned goods rest on their pH, and kuchen has to stay cold until it's handed over. A season of market days means a lot of dates, readings and batches to keep straight by hand.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps each batch's lot and date, and its readings.
Each batch dated. A batch of kuchen or jelly gets a lot with its production and best-before dates, and lot labels print with them, so the date on the label comes from the batch.
Readings on the batch. Fields of your own on the batch record hold the jelly's pH and the process authority's verification reference.
Where it went. Market and stand 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 date made | Handwritten | From the batch's lot |
| A batch's pH | A log sheet | A field on the batch record |
| Who got a batch | Not recorded | One recall report |
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.