The wording is yours
Every other state in this cluster hands you a sentence and tells you to reproduce it exactly. Missouri does not.
Under RSMo section 196.298 the statute requires your name, your address, and a statement conveying that the product was not produced in an inspected kitchen. It does not prescribe the words. Any wording that actually conveys non-inspection complies.
The Department of Health and Senior Services recommends this version:
This product is home-produced and processed and the production area has not been inspected by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services.
Another commonly used form:
This product is prepared in a kitchen that is not subject to inspection by the Department of Health and Senior Services.
Take the recommended wording unless you have a specific reason not to. Latitude sounds attractive and is mostly a liability here. A regulator's own suggested sentence is the one least likely to be argued with, and the effort you would spend crafting an alternative buys you nothing a customer will notice.
If you do write your own, the test is whether a reader who knows nothing about cottage food law comes away understanding that no health authority inspected the kitchen. Softening it until that meaning is optional is how a compliant-looking sentence stops complying. "Made with love in our family kitchen" conveys nothing about inspection.
The rest of the label
- The name and address of the person who made it
- The name of the product
- The ingredients
- The net weight
- Your non-inspection statement
A short, conventional list.
The cap is gone
Missouri previously capped cottage food sales at $50,000 a year. HB 1697 removed it, effective 28 August 2022. There is now no limit.
That change is recent enough that the old figure is still widely republished, so a guide telling you to stay under $50,000 is describing Missouri as it was three years ago.
No cap means the federal line is the one that matters
With the state ceiling gone, the thresholds that will actually constrain you are the FDA's.
The Nutrition Facts panel exemption at 21 CFR 101.9(j)(1) holds while annual gross sales are $500,000 or less, or annual gross sales of food to consumers are $50,000 or less. Nothing is filed to use it.
There is a coincidence worth naming, because it will confuse people for years. Missouri's old cap and the federal food-sales threshold are both $50,000. They were never the same rule. Missouri's is gone; the federal one is not. A producer who hears "the $50,000 limit was removed" and concludes that no $50,000 figure applies to them any more has drawn exactly the wrong conclusion: the state ceiling lifted, and the federal one that decides whether you need a Nutrition Facts panel stayed put.
The exemption also ends on any nutrient content or health claim on the label, in labeling, or in advertising, whatever your sales.
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
- Missouri Revised Statutes section 196.298
- Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services: Food safety
- 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 with the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, and confirm the final label against current regulations for your product and jurisdiction.