Cottage Food Label Requirements in Kansas (2026)

Cottage food rules in Kansas — the whole program

Who can sell homemade food in Kansas

Kansas has no statute or program called a 'cottage food law', and no cottage food permit, registration or producer list exists. Homemade food sales are handled instead as a licensing exemption inside the Kansas Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, administered by the Kansas Department of Agriculture (KDA) Food Safety and Lodging program. K.S.A. 65-689(a) makes it unlawful for any person to engage in the business of conducting a food establishment or food processing plant without a valid license from the secretary, and K.S.A. 65-689(d) then lists fourteen categories that are exempt from that licence. The category that carries home-based food businesses is K.S.A. 65-689(d)(4), which exempts 'a person who produces food for distribution directly to the end consumer, if such food does not require time and temperature control for safety or specialized processing, as determined by the secretary.' Two other exemptions in the same subsection matter in practice: K.S.A. 65-689(d)(6), 'a person operating a food establishment for less than seven days in any calendar year', which KDA and K-State read as allowing even temperature-controlled processed foods to be made and sold on six or fewer days per calendar year without a licence; and K.S.A. 65-689(d)(7), fundraising food preparation for community, humanitarian, educational or youth purposes, which the official guidance says carries no limit on the number of events per year where no staff is paid out of the food sale proceeds. There is no application, no fee, no plan review, no producer training and no routine inspection attached to the (d)(4) exemption itself. The trade-offs are the food itself (nothing that needs temperature control for safety, nothing needing a specialized process) and the customer (the end consumer only). Exempt production may take place in the producer's ordinary home kitchen: the January 2026 KDA/K-State guidance states that if a food does not require licensing to be sold directly to consumers, 'it can be made in the producer's home kitchen, if the kitchen provides a clean and sanitary environment for preparation of that food', and KDA also encourages exempt producers to use suitable shared-kitchen space. Exempt operations are not unregulated: K.A.R. 4-28-33, 'Sanitation and hygiene requirements for exempt food establishments' (adopted under K.S.A. 65-689, effective May 31, 2013), still applies, and KDA reads it as requiring protection of preparation areas from environmental contamination including rain, dust and pests; cleaning of food-contact surfaces with hot water and detergent followed by sanitizing (chlorine bleach at 50-100 ppm or an approved equivalent); a potable water supply, with private supplies tested annually for nitrates, total coliforms and fecal coliforms; handwashing with warm running water, soap for at least ten seconds and paper towels before handling food and whenever the hands are or could be contaminated; exclusion of anyone with vomiting, diarrhoea, jaundice or fever with sore throat, or infected with norovirus, hepatitis A, Shigella, E. coli or Salmonella Typhi; and approved sewage disposal. The guidance also states as a regulatory requirement that all foods on sale or display, even where no licence is needed, must be protected from contamination and sold in a sanitary manner, and that all foods must be honestly presented. IMPORTANT CORRECTION TO THE BRIEF: the operative exemption is K.S.A. 65-689(d)(4), not K.S.A. 65-656. K.S.A. 65-656 is the definitions section of the food and drug act (last amended L. 2022, ch. 84); the only exclusion it carries is that 'food establishment' does not include roadside markets that offer only whole fresh fruits, nuts and vegetables for sale. Many secondary sites, and the label-only record previously held for Kansas in this project's state_rules.json, cite 65-655/65-656 for the home-kitchen exemption; that citation is wrong and 65-689(d) is the correct one.

What you may and may not sell

Allowed:

• Baked goods made in a home kitchen: cookies, breads, cakes, cinnamon rolls, fruit pies, fruit cobbler. Vegetable or fruit breads such as zucchini or banana bread qualify where the fruit or vegetable is completely incorporated into the batter and the loaf is properly baked
• Dry baking mixes such as cookie mix and brownie mix
• Dough, including refrigerated, frozen or freeze-dried cookie dough and pizza dough (listed in the January 2026 guidance among the foods allowed without licensing, subject to the labeling rules)
• Icing and frosting, including cream-cheese-based frosting, where it is known to contain more than 65% sugar by weight (above that threshold no testing and no licence are needed)
• Chocolate candies, and products not requiring refrigeration for safety that are dipped in or decorated with melting chocolate, such as chocolate-covered pretzels, strawberries and nuts. Melting homemade or commercially prepared chocolate for dipping or decorating requires neither testing nor a licence (a change introduced in the 2026 revision of Chapter 17)
• Candies made in a home kitchen, for example cinnamon hard candy, caramels and toffee
• Dry snacks seasoned with oil and spices, for example dry pretzels mixed with oil and spices
• Grain products: home-ground flour, cornmeal, popcorn, intact grain, dehydrated sourdough starter
• Homemade dried pasta, where dried in a protected environment in a short time period
• Nuts and nut butters, shelled or in-shell, including roasted or smoked nuts and peanut or other nut butters
• Home-canned fruit jams and jellies, and jams and jellies flavoured with pepper-flavoured vinegar or small amounts of pepper powder (reduced-sugar or no-sugar jams and jellies require a product assessment)
• Canned, shelf-stable naturally high-acid foods such as canned applesauce and canned fruits
• Fruit leathers
• Honey sold direct to the consumer
• Spices in bulk or small quantities, and loose leaf tea, labelled properly, unadulterated and sold in a sanitary manner
• Vanilla extract, where the product meets the standard of identity at 21 CFR 169.175
• Pepper vinegars made with raw peppers, and herb-flavoured or herb-infused vinegars, unless a low-acid vinegar (pH above 4.2) is used or enough herbs are included to raise equilibrium pH above 4.2
• Lard sold direct to the consumer
• Fresh or dried uncut fruits, vegetables and herbs not cut beyond normal harvesting, intact salad greens including microgreens and shoots, and certain cut produce other than cut tomatoes, cut melons and leafy greens
• Cultivated culinary and medicinal mushrooms, fresh or dried, where not processed beyond cleaning and not heat-treated
• Eggs from flocks under 250 hens, ungraded, cartons clean and labelled (temperature control and labeling required for farms of 51 to 249 hens)
• Poultry from growers raising fewer than 1,000 birds per year, slaughtered and sold direct to the consumer at the grower's own facility without registration or inspection
• Any non-specialized processed food, including temperature-controlled items, made and sold on six or fewer days in a calendar year under the K.S.A. 65-689(d)(6) exemption (each day of sale counts toward the six), subject to K.A.R. 4-28-33; specialized processes still need advance approval even within six days
• Foods and beverages sold ready for immediate consumption by community groups for fundraising for community or humanitarian purposes or for educational or youth activities, with no restriction on the number of times per year where no staff is paid from the food sale proceeds

Not allowed under the program:

• Any food that requires time and temperature control for safety, which falls outside K.S.A. 65-689(d)(4) entirely
• Home-baked potentially hazardous items: cheesecake, cream- or meringue-filled pies, custards, cream-filled cupcakes or donuts, pumpkin pie, quiche, and cream-cheese-based frostings or fillings at or below 65% sugar. These need a KDA Food Establishment licence at both the production facility and the point of sale, and may not be made in an ordinary home kitchen — though the guidance marks this category as sellable without a licence on six or fewer days per year under the (d)(6) exemption
• Homemade dairy products of any kind: cheese, yogurt, ice cream and similar. Dairy must be pasteurized and processed at a KDA-licensed dairy manufacturing plant
• Uninspected meat and poultry. Meat, poultry above 20,000 birds per year, and catfish must be processed at an inspected facility, pre-packaged and properly labelled, with a KDA Meat and Poultry Wholesale licence before any sale, whether to a consumer or a wholesale account
• Ready-to-eat meat, poultry and catfish products such as jerky and summer sausage, and any curing of meat using nitrites
• Sprouts and sprouted grains, fresh or dried; these require a KDA Food Establishment licence and are the one category the guidance marks as not available even under the six-days-per-year exemption
• Cut leafy greens and certain cut produce (cut melons, cut tomatoes), which require a licence at both production facility and point of sale
• Roasted vegetables such as roasted garlic, black garlic and roasted corn, which require temperature control and therefore a KDA licence
• Home-canned pickles, meats, vegetables and naturally fermented canned foods
• Anything needing a 'specialized process' as determined by the secretary; the guidance names beef jerky, vacuum-packaging of temperature-control-for-safety foods, acidifying and pickling, curing with nitrites, fermenting and sprouting
• Wild-harvested mushrooms unless individually inspected by a KDA-registered mushroom identifier
• Freeze-dried versions of any food that would require a licence in its ordinary form — freeze drying does not move a product into the exemption
• Borderline products until tested: bread with cheese or vegetables baked in or on top, meringue cookies, pecan pie, powdered-sugar-and-milk icing, and candy containing under 1% alcohol by volume must be tested (water activity, formulation, pH) to establish whether a licence is required. Records must be kept and produced on request
• Any sale that is not to the end consumer. Wholesale, resale and business-to-business distribution fall outside the exemption and generally need a KDA Food Processing licence: selling to a restaurant, grocery store, variety store or convenience store, leaving product at a craft mall, and consignment sales are all specifically excluded by the January 2026 guidance

How much you may sell

No cap. Neither K.S.A. 65-689 nor K.A.R. 4-28-33 nor the January 2026 KDA/K-State guidance sets any annual sales, revenue, volume or unit limit on the direct-to-consumer licensing exemption. The Kansas limits are qualitative: the food must not require time and temperature control for safety or specialized processing, and the sale must be to the end consumer. The only numeric threshold in this area is a frequency threshold, not a money one: the separate K.S.A. 65-689(d)(6) exemption for a food establishment operating 'less than seven days in any calendar year', which KDA and K-State apply as six or fewer days of making and selling non-specialized processed foods. Other numeric thresholds in the guidance are product-specific rather than business-wide: under 250 hens for unlicensed egg sales, under 1,000 birds per year for on-farm poultry slaughter (1,001 to 20,000 birds requiring a KDA Meat and Poultry Wholesaler licence with poultry exemption at $25 per calendar year), more than 65% sugar by weight for icing, water activity 0.85 for low-alcohol candy, and pH 4.2 for infused vinegars and blanched frozen produce.

Where you may sell

• Direct to the end consumer, which is the defining condition of the K.S.A. 65-689(d)(4) exemption
• Farmers markets. Vendors should also check the market's own rules, which the guidance notes may be stricter than state regulation
• Festivals, bazaars, craft shows and similar events where the people making the products sell their own products
• Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), which the January 2026 guidance treats as generally a direct-to-consumer sale governed by the same product rules as a farmers market
• Roadside stands (markets and stands may register voluntarily in the Central Registry of Kansas Farmers Markets through the From the Land of Kansas program, which brings advertising and limited liability coverage; registration is not required)
• Online sales. The guidance states that the listed licensing exemptions 'would also apply to exempt foods sold online and shipped to the customer's home or delivered by the producer directly to the end consumer'
• Shipping and producer delivery to the customer's home, on the same basis
• Out-of-state online sales are addressed in the 2021 edition of the guidance, which adds that for foods sold online to a person in another state the seller must also follow the rules of the receiving state; that sentence is not repeated verbatim in the January 2026 Chapter 2 text extracted here, so treat interstate shipping as permitted by Kansas but governed additionally by the destination state and by federal law
• Bulk sales are allowed under the exemption and the customer may bring their own clean container to transport the food. Where the vendor displays product in bulk and packages individual orders on site, the booth must have handwashing facilities. Products requiring a licence must be packaged by the producer and the customer may not supply the container
• NOT available under the exemption: wholesale and resale channels — grocery stores, restaurants, variety and convenience stores, co-ops, consignment, and craft malls where the producer leaves the product with another business owner. These require a KDA Food Processing licence

Permit, registration and fees

Kansas requires no state permit or registration for a cottage food operation.

1. Classify the product first. If it needs time and temperature control for safety, or a specialized process (jerky, vacuum-packaging of TCS foods, acidifying or pickling, curing with nitrites, fermenting, sprouting), it is outside the exemption and a KDA licence is required; those foods may not be made in an ordinary home kitchen
2. If the product sits in the borderline group, have it tested before selling: water activity, product formulation and/or pH, at the Kansas Value Added Foods Lab (www.ksre.ksu.edu/kvafl, kvafl@ksu.edu, 785-532-1294) or another accredited lab. Keep the test result documents and make them available on request. Even for exempt acidified products the guidance advises checking pH periodically and keeping the records
3. Confirm the sale is to the end consumer only. Any resale, wholesale, consignment or craft-mall arrangement moves the operation into KDA Food Processing licence territory
4. Set up the kitchen and the market stand to meet K.A.R. 4-28-33: contamination-protected preparation area, cleaning then sanitizing of food-contact surfaces, potable water (private supplies tested annually for nitrates and total and fecal coliforms), handwashing with warm running water, soap for at least ten seconds and paper towels, exclusion of ill food handlers, approved sewage disposal
5. Build a compliant label for every packaged product: common name of the product (for example 'apple pie'); name and physical address of the person that made or is selling it; ingredients listed in descending order by weight, with the nine common food allergens named in plain language, for example 'casein (milk)'; and quantity as net weight, volume or count depending on the product. No home-kitchen or 'uninspected' disclaimer is required
6. Obtain a Kansas Retail Sales Tax certificate from the Kansas Department of Revenue (785-368-8222) — the guidance states every vendor must obtain one and file their own liability
7. File as a business entity with the Secretary of State if the structure requires it (785-296-4564). Sole proprietorships do not file; general partnerships may file but are not required to
8. If selling by weight, have the scale tested annually by a licensed service company under KDA Weights and Measures (785-564-6700), and follow the prescribed method of sale (weight, count, head or bunch, dry measure)
9. Check the individual market's rules, which may be stricter than state law, and check local zoning and any city or county requirements separately; state law does not displace them
10. If a licence does turn out to be needed, complete the appropriate application form from https://agriculture.ks.gov/foodlicense, send it to KDA with payment, and KDA will contact the applicant to conduct an initial inspection

Fee: $0 for the exempt direct-to-consumer home producer: K.S.A. 65-689(d)(4) carries no application, licence or inspection fee, because no licence is issued. Fees apply only if the product or the channel pushes the operation out of the exemption, and the statutory ceilings are set by K.S.A. 65-688 (last amended L. 2012, ch. 145, § 23): the application fee for each food establishment or food processing plant location 'shall not exceed $350'; the annual licence fee is 'no more than $250 for any food establishment of less than 5,000 square feet', no more than $300 for 5,000 to under 10,000 square feet, no more than $500 for 10,000 to under 50,000 square feet, and no more than $750 for 50,000 square feet or more; for food processing plants, no more than $200 under 5,000 square feet and no more than $400 at 5,000 square feet or more. These are statutory maxima, not the amounts actually charged — the amounts KDA currently collects are set by the secretary and were not verified against a KDA fee schedule for this record (the KDA licence pages returned HTTP 403). The one exempt-adjacent fee that is stated as an actual amount in the guidance is the KDA Meat and Poultry Wholesaler licence with poultry exemption, $25 per calendar year, for growers selling 1,001 to 20,000 birds per year. K.S.A. 65-689 itself states only a $5 fee for a duplicate licence.

Renewal: Not applicable to the exemption: there is nothing to renew, because nothing is issued. The exemption is a standing statutory status that lasts as long as the product and the channel stay inside it. Where a KDA Food Establishment or Food Processing licence is required, K.S.A. 65-688 frames the licence fee as annual; the exact renewal cycle and current amount should be confirmed with KDA Food Safety and Lodging, as the KDA fee pages could not be read for this record.

Food safety training

None required by statute or regulation. There is no mandatory food handler card, food safety course, food protection manager certification or KDA-approved training attached to the K.S.A. 65-689(d)(4) exemption, and the January 2026 guidance imposes none. The hygiene obligations in K.A.R. 4-28-33 are performance requirements on the operation, not a training credential. Kansas does publish substantial voluntary material through K-State Research and Extension and KDA: the guidance document MF3138 itself, MF3385 on food labeling for Kansas producers and processors, MF3311 on sampling safely at Kansas farmers markets, MF3544 on the food safety of frostings and fillings, and MF3555 on selling safe canned foods in Kansas. Better Process Control School and HACCP training exist through the Kansas Value-Added/Product Development Lab, but those are aimed at licensed and specialized processing, not at exempt home producers. Individual markets may impose their own training expectations, which the guidance notes can be stricter than state rules.

Inspection

No routine inspection of exempt home kitchens. Because the (d)(4) producer holds no licence, there is no plan review, no pre-opening inspection and no scheduled visit. KDA Food Safety and Lodging inspectors visit farmers markets to inspect licensed vendors or to investigate food safety complaints, and KDA Meat and Poultry compliance officers conduct random inspections of vendors at farmers markets to check the food safety of meat and poultry products — so an exempt vendor can encounter an inspector on the market floor, in the course of a complaint investigation, or on the meat and poultry side. Product test records (water activity, pH, formulation) must be kept by the operator and made available on request, which is the practical documentary check on borderline products. Farmers market managers and Extension personnel are explicitly not regulators or enforcers, though managers do enforce their own market rules. Where a licence is required, KDA contacts the applicant to conduct an initial inspection after the form and payment are received.

What your city or county may add

Kansas food safety regulation of retail food sales, including at farmers markets, is state-level through KDA Food Safety and Lodging, and the guidance tells producers that the state requirements in MF3138 are what they need to follow; the document does not describe a county or city food licence layer for exempt direct-to-consumer sales. What does bind locally is everything outside food safety: the market's own vendor rules, which the guidance twice warns may be more strict than state regulation and which market managers do enforce; municipal and county zoning, business licensing and home-occupation rules, which the state exemption does not displace; and sanitation infrastructure at the point of sale, since a stand selling foods ready for immediate consumption must have handwashing facilities, temperature control for perishables, a potable water supply and a sewage or grey-water storage tank able to be transported for proper disposal into a sanitary sewer rather than a storm sewer. Septic systems serving an exempt operation require approval from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment or the county sanitarian under K.A.R. 4-28-33, which is the one place the regulation routes an exempt producer to a county official. Producers should verify zoning and any local permit with their city or county before starting.

Program sources: K.S.A. 65-689 — Food establishments and food processing plants; licence required; exemptions from licensure (d)(1)-(14); duplicate licence fee. Kansas Office of Revisor of Statutes — https://ksrevisor.gov/statutes/chapters/ch65/065_006_0089.html · K.S.A. 65-688 — Application and annual licence fees for food establishments and food processing plants (statutory maxima by square footage). Kansas Office of Revisor of Statutes — https://ksrevisor.gov/statutes/chapters/ch65/065_006_0088.html · K.S.A. 65-656 — Definitions under the Kansas food and drug act (read to verify that it is NOT the source of the home-kitchen exemption; only exclusion is roadside markets of whole fresh fruits, nuts and vegetables) — https://ksrevisor.gov/statutes/chapters/ch65/065_006_0056.html · K.S.A. 65-657 — Unlawful acts under the Kansas food and drug act (read and found not to contain licensing or exemption provisions) — https://ksrevisor.gov/statutes/chapters/ch65/065_006_0057.html · K.A.R. 4-28-33 — Sanitation and hygiene requirements for exempt food establishments (authority K.S.A. 65-689, effective May 31, 2013). REPRODUCTION, not the official Kansas Secretary of State text: read via Cornell Legal Information Institute because the SOS regulation viewer was not fetched — https://www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/kansas/K-A-R-4-28-33 · Kansas Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Lodging / K-State Research and Extension, 'Foods Sold Directly to Consumers in Kansas: Regulations and Food Safety Best Practices', MF3138, Revised January 2026 — CURRENT EDITION, parsed from the PDF; source of the allowed/prohibited tables, the labeling list with the nine allergens in plain language, the no-disclaimer statement, the home-kitchen and shared-kitchen allowance, online/shipping treatment, the wholesale and craft-mall exclusions, testing requirements and licence fee routing — https://bookstore.ksre.ksu.edu/pubs/MF3138.pdf · Same publication, Revised January 2021 edition, parsed from the PDF as a cross-check — source of the sentence that online sales into another state must also follow the receiving state's rules, and of the $25 per calendar year KDA Meat & Poultry Wholesaler poultry-exemption licence figure — https://www.sedgwick.k-state.edu/local-food/commercial-fruits-vegetables/MF3138%20rev.pdf · Kansas Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Lodging program landing page (agency contact of record: KDA.FSL@ks.gov, 785-564-6767) — cited as the agency reference in MF3138 Chapter 1 Key Contacts — https://www.agriculture.ks.gov/divisions-programs/food-safety-and-lodging