Wyoming's cottage food law is the Wyoming Food Freedom Act, W.S. 11-49-101 and following, last widened in 2023. Homemade food and drink, made in a home kitchen that isn't licensed or inspected, is exempt from state licensing, permits, inspection, packaging and labeling, as long as it's sold to an informed end consumer in Wyoming. That includes perishable food like quiche or anything needing refrigeration, sold by you or your designated agent, and shelf-stable food, jams, pickled vegetables, candy, granola, baked goods, which a grocery store or retail shop can also sell, on its own shelf with a set label. A producer stays under 250,000 items and $250,000 in gross revenue a year. Meat is limited to your own poultry, rabbit, farm-raised fish and animal shares, and nothing homemade can be served in a restaurant. In the example below, a Lander producer sorts six products. Below are the rules, the label, selling through stores, the example, and a free checklist.
The short version
- No license, permit, inspection, packaging or labeling requirements for homemade food sold to informed end consumers.
- A producer makes no more than 250,000 items and $250,000 in gross revenue from food and drink a year.
- Shelf-stable food, eggs and dairy: sold by you, a designated agent, or a store, which shelves it apart with a label.
- Perishable food: sold by you or a designated agent named in writing, such as a consignment market or food freedom store.
- Sales only in Wyoming: farmers markets, farms, ranches, your home or office, the store, or anywhere you and the buyer agree.
- Meat only as listed: your own poultry up to 1,000 birds, rabbit, farm-raised fish other than catfish, animal shares.
- Not served or used as an ingredient in a commercial food establishment.
- Tell every buyer it isn't certified, labeled, licensed, packaged, regulated or inspected.
- TaroStack keeps each batch's lot and the year's sales against $250,000. More below.
The rules
| Rule | What W.S. 11-49 says |
|---|---|
| Homemade | Prepared or processed in a private home kitchen that isn't licensed, inspected or regulated |
| Producer | Grows, harvests, prepares or processes food or drink on owned or leased property; no more than 250,000 items and $250,000 a year |
| Shelf-stable food, eggs, dairy | Sold by the producer, a designated agent, or a third-party vendor such as a retail shop or grocery store |
| Perishable food | Sold by the producer or a designated agent only |
| Designated agent | A person, consignment market or food freedom store named in writing; never takes ownership |
| Where | Only in Wyoming; no interstate commerce |
| Meat | Not sold, except own-raised poultry (up to 1,000 birds), live animals, shares before slaughter, rabbit, farm-raised fish other than catfish, animal shares |
| Restaurants | Homemade food can't be served or used as an ingredient in a commercial food establishment |
| Disclosure | The buyer is told the food isn't certified, labeled, licensed, packaged, regulated or inspected |
The Act is in Wyoming Statutes Title 11, chapter 49. A section on selling uninspected red meat from custom slaughter takes effect only if federal law changes, which the governor would certify. The 2023 amendments, SF0102, added eggs and dairy and defined designated agents. This is general information, not legal advice.
The label
| Where you sell | What the Act asks |
|---|---|
| Farmers market, farm, ranch, home | Tell the buyer the food isn't certified, labeled, licensed, packaged, regulated or inspected |
| A retail space at your farm, ranch or home | A sign that the homemade food hasn't been inspected |
| A grocery store or retail shop | Labeled "this food was made in a home kitchen, is not regulated or inspected and may contain allergens", on a shelf apart from licensed food |
The Act doesn't require an ingredient list, but your name, the ingredients and the allergens are what a buyer with an allergy needs. How to work out the allergens in a recipe is in allergen matrix template.
Selling through stores
A grocery store or shop can sell your shelf-stable food, eggs and dairy, displayed on its own shelf with the label above, and it tells buyers the food isn't inspected. Perishable homemade food goes only through you or a designated agent; a retail space that sells it alongside inspected products, or next to a commercial food establishment, needs a separate door, a separate register, separate coolers and signs, under Department of Agriculture rules. Which foods count as perishable is in TCS foods list.
An example: a Lander producer
Wind River Kitchen, a made-up producer in Lander, Wyoming, I use in these examples, sells at a farmers market, through a food freedom store it named as its designated agent, and to a grocery:
| Product | Allowed? | How |
|---|---|---|
| Chokecherry jelly in the grocery | Yes | Shelf-stable: labeled and on its own shelf |
| Pickled vegetables | Yes | Named as shelf-stable in the Act |
| Quiche | Yes | Perishable: sold by the producer or the food freedom store |
| Chickens from its own flock | Yes | Under 1,000 own-raised birds |
| Elk jerky | No | Meat outside the listed exceptions |
| Cinnamon rolls a café serves | No | Not in a commercial food establishment |
Summer markets drive the year: by September Wind River had sold $58,000, 23% of the $250,000 a producer can earn under the Act. How a home food business starts is in how to start a cottage food business.
Get the checklist
Download the Wyoming Food Freedom Act checklist. Three sheets: the disclosures, each with a column for yours; products, each with whether it's allowed and how; and sales by month against $250,000, 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 Act's limit counts both items and dollars, and a producer selling through a grocery, a food freedom store and a market has three channels to add up. When the Department of Health looks into an illness, which batch it was and where the rest went is the first question.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps each batch's lot and the year's sales against $250,000.
Each batch dated. A batch of jelly or quiche 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 where a batch went.
The year's totals. Orders record quantities and amounts, with Square connected for market sales, so the year's items and revenue come from the records; every list exports to CSV.
| The job | Notebook | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| A batch's date | Written on the jar | The batch's lot and dates |
| Who got a batch | Not recorded | One recall report |
| Items and revenue for the year | Added up by hand | 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.