The short version
Minnesota's Cottage Food Exemption, Minn. Stat. 28A.152, is one of the more administered schemes in the country. You register with the Minnesota Department of Agriculture before you sell anything, you take a training course, you label the product, you put up a sign, and you hand the food to the customer in person. The cap is $78,000 in gross receipts per calendar year.
It is also a scheme in transition. Revisions passed in 2025 take effect 1 August 2027 and change the registration tiers, the fee, the training, and the shipping rule all at once. Read on for what applies now and what replaces it, because the statute on the Revisor's site already shows the 2027 text while the MDA guidance describes the rules you actually operate under today.
Register first, sell second
Registration is annual and comes in two tiers, set by gross annual sales.
| | Tier 1 | Tier 2 | |---|---|---| | Gross annual sales | $7,665 or less | $7,666 to $78,000 | | Fee | None | $50, plus $2.50 if you pay online | | Training | Online training and exam each year | Approved food safety course every three years |
MDA mails a registration card with a unique number. Processing can take up to 30 days, but you may start selling as soon as your number appears in MDA's Licensing Information Search, without waiting for the card.
The $78,000 cap is indexed. The commissioner adjusts it every two years to the Consumer Price Index, using July 2025 as the base month, so the figure you plan against will move.
The label
Five things, on every package:
- Your full name as the registrant, or your registered business name
- Your registration number or your address. Either one satisfies the requirement
- The date the food was made
- The statement
These products are homemade and not subject to state inspection. - The ingredients, including major food allergens
That second point is the one worth acting on. Most states make a home producer print a home address on every jar. Minnesota lets a registration number stand in its place, which is the single most useful thing in this scheme for anyone selling to strangers at a market.
Allergens can go in parentheses after the ingredient, lecithin (soy), or in a separate Contains statement. Nine of them: milk, eggs, wheat, soy, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, and sesame. Milk or eggs from a non-traditional source want the species named, so goat's milk is declared as goat's milk.
The sign is a separate requirement, with different wording
At the point of sale you must display a sign reading:
These foods are homemade and not subject to state inspection.
Compare it to the label statement above. The label says products, the sign says foods. They are two sentences, not one sentence used twice, and MDA publishes them that way. If you are conducting internet sales, the same sign statement goes on your website.
You cannot ship it
Cottage food intended for humans cannot be mailed or sent by a third-party courier. You hand it over at your home, at your market stand or event booth, or you personally deliver it to an address inside Minnesota. Orders and payment can happen online; the handover cannot.
Two related limits catch people out:
- Pet treats are different. Registered producers may ship cottage pet treats by mail or commercial delivery. Other states may then require a feed licence or product registration at the destination, which is your problem, not MDA's.
- Home-canned goods cannot cross state lines. Pickles and salsa made in Wisconsin cannot be sold as Minnesota cottage food, and vice versa.
You also cannot wholesale. New registration cards carry the line This is not a license. Products cannot be resold., which exists because shops were being offered cottage food to stock.
What changes on 1 August 2027
The 2025 revisions to Minn. Stat. 28A.152 and 25.391 replace four things at once:
- One registration tier for everyone. No more Tier 1 and Tier 2
- A flat $30 yearly fee for all registrants
- Shipping allowed within Minnesota
- Advanced training required of all registrants
MDA begins implementation planning in 2026. If you are reading the statute directly and it does not match what MDA's guidance says, that is why: the Revisor publishes the amended text, and it is not in force yet.
The Nutrition Facts panel
Minnesota does not require one and does not decide the question. That is federal.
Most cottage food producers are exempt under 21 CFR 101.9(j)(1): annual gross sales of $500,000 or less, or annual gross sales of food to consumers of $50,000 or less. Nothing to file. Minnesota's $78,000 cap sits above the $50,000 federal figure, which means a producer near the top of the state cap can be over the federal one. The two limits are unrelated and neither agency will warn you about the other.
The exemption also ends the moment you make a nutrient content or health claim. High in fibre on the label, or in the Etsy listing, or on the sign, and you need a panel regardless of sales.
For a business past the (j)(1) thresholds, 21 CFR 101.9(j)(18) is the second route: fewer than 100 full-time equivalent employees, fewer than 100,000 units sold in the US in 12 months, and an annual notice to the FDA. Both are covered in when nutrition labels are required in the US.
Making the panel
Nutrifax builds it from your recipe against USDA FoodData Central, in the FDA 2016 format, rounded per 21 CFR 101.9. Import or build the recipe, check each ingredient match, set the serving size from the reference amount for your category, and export a print-ready PDF or PNG.
Related pages
- Cottage Food Label Requirements by State
- When Nutrition Labels Are Required in the US
- US FDA Nutrition Label Requirements for Small Producers
- Serving Size and Rounding Rules (US FDA)
- FDA nutrition label generator
Sources
- Minnesota Statutes 28A.152: Cottage foods exemption
- Minnesota Department of Agriculture: Cottage food law guidance
- Minnesota Department of Agriculture: Cottage food producer registration
- FDA: Small business nutrition labeling exemption guide
- eCFR: 21 CFR 101.9 (Nutrition labeling of food)
Disclaimer
Educational content only; not legal advice. Confirm current requirements against MDA's cottage food law guidance, and confirm the final label against current regulations for your product and jurisdiction.