Vermont rewrote its home food rules with Act 42 of 2025. A cottage food operator making foods that don't need refrigeration in the home kitchen, or a kitchen on their property, needs no license or fee while gross annual receipts from cottage food stay at $30,000 or less. The foods include baked goods, candy, jams and jellies, granola, coffee beans, flavored vinegar, and home-canned pickles and vegetables made from approved recipes. In return, you complete the Health Department's online training every year, file your exemption by January 15 each year, label everything to the Manufactured Food Rule, and never sell to restaurants or other licensed food establishments. Bigger operations, or food that needs refrigeration, take a home bakery or home caterer license with an inspection. In the example below, a Middlebury baker sorts six products. Below are the rules, the foods, the label, the example, and a free checklist.
The short version
- Cottage food operator exemption: up to $30,000 a year in gross receipts from cottage food; no license or fee.
- Made in your home kitchen, or a kitchen on your personal property.
- Every year: the Health Department's online training, and an exemption filed by January 15.
- Foods that don't need refrigeration, including home-canned pickles from approved recipes.
- Not to restaurants or other licensed food establishments.
- A home bakery or home caterer license, with an opening inspection, covers bigger bakeries and prepared food.
- Label: name and address, product, ingredients, net weight, allergens, and "Made in a home kitchen not inspected by the Vermont Department of Health."
- TaroStack keeps each batch's lot and the year's receipts against $30,000. More below.
The rules
| Rule | What Act 42 and the Health Department say |
|---|---|
| Who | A cottage food operator: produces or packages cottage food only in the home kitchen or a kitchen on their property |
| Limit | Gross annual receipts from cottage food of $30,000 or less |
| License | None and no fee, but Vermont's food manufacturing rules still apply and an inspector may visit |
| Training | The License Exempt Food Processors and Cottage Food Operators online training, every year |
| Filing | An exemption filed in the online portal by January 15 each year |
| Not allowed | Sales to restaurants or other licensed food establishments |
| Kitchen | Wash, rinse and sanitize in separate compartments; fridge at 41°F or below; children and pets out while you work |
| Water | A private well tested every year for total coliform and E. coli |
The definitions are in Act 42, and the Health Department's home-based food page explains the training, filing and label. A separate exemption covers food processors with sales under $10,000. This is general information, not legal advice.
What you can make
| Cottage food | Not cottage food |
|---|---|
| Non-potentially hazardous baked goods | Cream pies, cheesecake, anything needing refrigeration |
| Candy; jams and jellies | Prepared meals and foods for later cooking, which take a home caterer license |
| Dry herbs, dry tea, coffee beans | |
| Trail mix, granola, cereal, mixed nuts, popcorn | |
| Flavored vinegar | |
| Home-canned pickles, vegetables or fruits at pH 4.6 or lower or water activity 0.85 or less, from a National Center for Home Food Preservation recipe or reviewed by a process authority |
You can ask the Health Department to review a product with its Cottage Food Product Review Request Form, but you don't have to. Which foods need refrigeration is in TCS foods list, and how pickles are tested in pH testing for acidified foods.
The label
| Line | What it says |
|---|---|
| Producer | Name and address |
| Product | The name of the food |
| Ingredients | From the greatest amount to the smallest |
| Net quantity | Net weight or volume |
| Allergens | In parentheses after ingredients, or a Contains statement |
| Statement | "Made in a home kitchen not inspected by the Vermont Department of Health" in at least 10-point, contrasting type |
Food sold from bulk containers can use a sign or table tent with the label information. A Nutrition Facts panel is needed only for a nutrient or health claim. How to work out the allergens in a recipe is in allergen matrix template.
An example: a Middlebury baker
Champlain Valley Bakehouse, a made-up cottage food operator in Middlebury, Vermont, I use in these examples, sells at a farmers market and a holiday fair:
| Product | Allowed? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Maple sugar cookies | Yes | Shelf-stable baked goods |
| Dilly beans | Yes | Home-canned from an approved recipe |
| Strawberry jam | Yes | Jams and jellies |
| Maple cream pie | No | Needs refrigeration |
| Chicken pot pies | No | Prepared food: a home caterer license |
| Sourdough for a café | No | No sales to licensed food establishments |
The baker completed the online training and filed the exemption in January. By September Champlain Valley had $24,800 in receipts, 83% of the $30,000, with the holiday fair ahead. How a home food business starts is in how to start a cottage food business.
Get the checklist
Download the Vermont cottage food checklist. Three sheets: the label, each line with a column for yours; products, each with whether it's allowed and why; and receipts by month against $30,000, 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
The exemption ends at $30,000, and the January filing asks whether you're still under it. Market days, a holiday fair and order-ahead customers in three places make that number hard to state with confidence.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps each batch's lot and the year's receipts against $30,000.
Each batch dated. A batch of dilly beans gets a lot with its production and best-before dates, and lot labels print with it; fields of your own on the batch record hold its pH.
Recipes by version. The approved canning recipe is a recipe version on a date, so each batch records which version it followed.
The year's receipts. Market and fair sales sit together, with Square connected for market sales, so the total against $30,000 comes from the records; every list exports to CSV.
| The job | Notebook | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| A batch's date and pH | A log sheet | The batch's lot and fields |
| The approved recipe | A printout | A recipe version on a date |
| The year's receipts | Added up in January | From the orders, exported to CSV |
Lots, batches, versioned recipes and orders 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.