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Selling homemade food in Missouri means your label has to follow the Missouri Cottage Law — Mo. Rev. Stat. § 196.298, as repealed and re-enacted by HB 1697, effective 28 August 2022. No permit, no licence, no registration, no fee, no inspection and no training: a cottage food production operation « is not a food service establishment », and a local health department « shall not regulate the production of food » at one. The exemption is narrow by food, not by money — only baked goods, canned jam or jelly, and dried herb or herb mixes — and since 2022 there is no income cap at all. Internet sales are allowed provided both the operation and the purchaser are located in Missouri. Sales must be direct to the consumer. Here is exactly what that label must show in 2026 — the required fields, the allergen rule, and the disclaimer and its font size — sourced to the statute and dated.
Missouri fixes what the label has to say, not the words. Any wording that conveys the same thing complies — this is the version we recommend printing:
No minimum type size exists anywhere: the whole rule is that the label be « legible to the consumer », so no point value is claimed. Missouri prescribes CONTENT, not wording — § 196.298.4 asks for « a statement that the food is not inspected by the department or local health department », so no sentence is legally verbatim; the one shown is the formula published by DHSS, which is what your local public health agency reads. Heads-up on the split: the STATUTE names only your name, your address and that statement. The other four items — common name, ingredients in descending order of weight, net weight, allergens — come from the DHSS guidance, which says of itself that it binds no one. Print all six. There is no permit number to print. Second heads-up, and it costs sales: guides still quoting a $50,000 annual income cap are describing a paragraph HB 1697 struck.
Missouri's cottage food exemption sits in a single statute, section 196.298 RSMo, and it is drawn narrowly around three things: who you are, where you produce, and who you sell to. A "cottage food production operation" is defined at section 196.298.1(2) as "an individual operation out of the individual's home who: (a) Produces a baked good, a canned jam or jelly, or a dried herb or herb mix for sale at the individual's home; and (b) Sells the food produced under paragraph (a) of this subdivision only directly to consumers." "Home" is defined at section 196.298.1(4) as "a primary residence that contains a kitchen and appliances designed for common residential usage" - so a rented commercial space, a church hall or a second property that is not the producer's primary residence does not qualify, and neither does a household appliance fleet built out as a commercial kitchen. Both prongs of the definition must hold: the food must be produced for sale at the producer's home and sold only directly to consumers. Once an operation fits, section 196.298.2 removes it from the state food-code regime entirely: "A cottage food production operation is not a food service establishment and shall not be subject to any health or food code laws or regulations of the state or department other than this section and rules promulgated thereunder for a cottage food production operation." There is no state licence, no permit, no fee, no registration and no state inspection attached to the exemption. Missouri also runs a second, older and separate home-processing exemption at section 261.241 RSMo for jams, jellies and honey, which carries its own $30,000 annual sales figure and its own labelling and placard duties; it is a different statute with a different scope, not a variant of the cottage food law, and a producer of jams or jellies should read both and decide which one their sales pattern actually fits.
Allowed:
Not allowed under the program:
No cap under the cottage food law. Section 196.298 as currently in force contains no annual gross sales, revenue or volume limit anywhere in its six subsections; the former $50,000 annual gross income limit is no longer present in the current text. The statute's effective date on the Missouri Revisor of Statutes is August 28, 2022, with the history note "(L. 2014 S.B. 525, A.L. 2022 H.B. 1697)". The one dollar figure that does exist in Missouri home-food law belongs to the separate exemption at section 261.241 RSMo, which applies to sellers of jams, jellies and honey with "annual sales of $30,000 or less per domicile" - that figure governs section 261.241 only and does not limit a section 196.298 cottage food production operation.
Missouri requires no state permit or registration for a cottage food operation.
Fee: None. Section 196.298 imposes no fee of any kind, and no application, licence, permit or registration fee attaches to the cottage food exemption because there is nothing to apply for. Any fee a Missouri producer pays - a temporary food establishment permit at an off-site event, a sales tax bond, a local business licence - comes from a different authority than the cottage food statute.
Renewal: Not applicable. Nothing is issued, so nothing expires or renews. The obligations under section 196.298 are continuous conditions on the exemption rather than a permit with a term: the operation stays exempt only for as long as it keeps to the three product categories, the home-production requirement, the direct-to-consumer requirement, the labelling requirement and the in-state internet restriction.
None required. Section 196.298 imposes no food handler card, no food safety course, no certified food protection manager and no training hours, and its subsection 2 removes cottage food production operations from state health and food code requirements other than section 196.298 itself. Nothing in the statute gives DHSS or a local health department authority to require training as a condition of the exemption. A local food handler card ordinance aimed at food establishments would not reach a cottage food operation's production, since section 196.298.3(1) bars local regulation of that production, but a producer working a permitted temporary event stall could encounter that venue's own requirements.
No routine inspection, with two named carve-outs. Section 196.298.2 places a cottage food production operation outside the state health and food code regime, and section 196.298.3(1) states flatly that "A local health department shall not regulate the production of food at a cottage food production operation." There is no pre-approval inspection, no periodic inspection and no home visit built into the exemption - which is also why the statute makes the producer print an uninspected-kitchen statement on every label. What remains: section 196.298.3(2) requires that "Each local health department and the department shall maintain a record of a complaint made by a person against a cottage food production operation", so consumer complaints are logged even though production is not regulated; and section 196.298.6 preserves investigative power, providing that "Nothing in this section shall be construed to prohibit the authority of the department of health and senior services or local health departments to conduct an investigation of a food-borne disease or outbreak." An operation that steps outside the definition - a non-exempt product, a wholesale sale, production somewhere other than the primary residence - is not a cottage food production operation for that activity and is exposed to the ordinary food establishment regime.
Missouri pre-empts local food regulation of cottage food production, and only that. Section 196.298.3(1) prohibits a local health department from regulating the production of food at a cottage food production operation, which is unusually direct pre-emption language and means a county or city health department cannot impose permits, plan review, kitchen standards or inspections on the home production itself. The pre-emption is written around production, and it does not purport to displace: zoning and land-use rules on operating a business in a residential district; municipal business licensing; nuisance, signage, parking and traffic ordinances; a landlord's lease terms or a homeowner-association covenant; or a permitted temporary food establishment at an off-site event, which is a different activity in a different place than production at the home. Kansas City, St. Louis City, St. Louis County, Springfield-Greene County, Clay County and Missouri's other local public health agencies remain the authority to ask about the venue rules that apply once a producer sells anywhere other than their own home. Federal law is also untouched: FALCPA allergen declaration and the FDA food labelling framework operate independently of a state exemption, and interstate shipment leaves the state exemption entirely.
Program sources: Missouri Revisor of Statutes, RSMo Section 196.298 - "Definitions - operation not deemed food service establishment, when - no state or local regulation" (official; effective August 28, 2022; L. 2014 S.B. 525, A.L. 2022 H.B. 1697): https://revisor.mo.gov/main/OneSection.aspx?section=196.298 · Missouri Revisor of Statutes, RSMo Section 196.298 (second read, subsections 1, 3 and 6, bid parameter): https://revisor.mo.gov/main/OneSection.aspx?section=196.298&bid=51016 · Missouri Revisor of Statutes, RSMo Section 261.241 (home-processed jams, jellies and honey exemption; $30,000 or less per domicile; L. 2002 S.B. 639, A.L. 2005 S.B. 355): https://revisor.mo.gov/main/OneSection.aspx?section=261.241&bid=51811 · Clay County Public Health Center, "Cottage Food - Missouri Food Code" - full verbatim reproduction of all six subsections of section 196.298, used to corroborate the Revisor reads word for word: https://www.clayhealth.com/DocumentCenter/View/1492 · Missouri Secretary of State, Code of State Regulations, Title 19 Division 20 Chapter 1 - Food Protection, 19 CSR 20-1 (current chapter PDF, footer 12/31/21; read in full; contains no cottage food rule): https://s1.sos.mo.gov/cmsimages/adrules/csr/current/19csr/19c20-1.pdf · Missouri Secretary of State, Code of State Regulations, "Revised Statutes of Missouri cross-referenced to Code of State Regulations" general index (footer 4/30/26; no rule listed under section 196.298): https://s1.sos.mo.gov/cmsimages/adrules/csr/current/indexes/Rsmoindex.pdf
Missouri is a true no-permit, no-registration cottage food state: § 196.298 exempts qualifying home operations from being treated as food establishments and from any inspection/license requirement, so there is no permit number to put on the label. Verbatim from § 196.298.4, the label must carry only the operation's name and address plus "a statement that the food is not inspected by the department or local health department" — the statute fixes NEITHER exact disclaimer words NOR a font size. Missouri labels are therefore flexible on wording but strict on substance: the not-inspected statement must be present and unambiguous.
The old § 196.298.1(2)(b) limited a cottage food production operation to « an annual gross income of fifty thousand dollars or less » — the $50,000 cap you still see quoted everywhere, and it no longer exists. HB 1697 struck that paragraph outright — the truly agreed bill shows it in bold-faced brackets, which in Missouri drafting means « not enacted and intended to be omitted from the law ». DHSS states it plainly: « There is no longer a limit to how much a cottage food producer can make annually. » A producer working from the old figure caps a business the state stopped capping.
Unlike California ("Made in a Home Kitchen") or Texas, Missouri prescribes no exact disclaimer string and no minimum point size. § 196.298.4 requires only a statement that the food is not inspected by the department or local health department. Printing an official-looking fixed phrase in a mandated size implies a rule that does not exist.
The statutory words are "the department or local health department," where "the department" is the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS). Naming DHSS (or the local health department) is a safe, clear way to satisfy the requirement; referencing the Department of Agriculture instead would be wrong. The statute does not, however, strictly require spelling out "Department of Health and Senior Services" — a statement referencing the department satisfies the substance.
§ 196.298 exempts the operation from state inspection, not from federal FALCPA allergen disclosure. Products containing milk, eggs, wheat, soy, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish (and sesame) should declare those allergens; the state exemption does not waive this.
§ 196.298.4 delegates the operative labeling rules to DHSS. Additional elements common to such rules (common/usual product name, ingredients, net quantity) may be required by the promulgated rule even though the statute lists only name/address plus the disclaimer. The DHSS page was not machine-readable at research time (HTTP 403); confirm the current DHSS rule/guidance before finalizing a label.
Before 28 August 2022 the statute said nothing about the internet and DHSS treated online selling as outside the exemption. HB 1697 added subsection 5, which allows it — on one condition that is easy to breach: « both the cottage food production operation and the purchaser are located in this state ». One order shipped to Kansas, and the sale is outside the Cottage Law.
§ 196.298.4 requires the name and address of the operation and a statement that the food is not inspected. The DHSS Home-Based Kitchen Food Production Guidance asks for six items: full name and address, the common name of the food, all ingredients in descending order of weight, net weight, any allergens, and the not-inspected statement — all « legible to the consumer ». The guidance says of itself that it does not bind anyone, but it is what your local public health agency reads.
The list is exhaustive: baked goods, canned jam or jelly, dried herb and dried herb mixes. DHSS names what falls outside — cut produce, baked goods garnished with fresh fruit, freeze-dried foods, salsa, pickles, sauces, sprouts, wild mushrooms, meats, dairy, eggs, pet foods. « Cottage Law » is not an umbrella term.
DHSS excludes them by name. Altering the sugar content, or adding hot peppers, can change the pH or water activity enough that the product is no longer non-potentially-hazardous — and because such products vary so much, they cannot be sold under the Cottage Law at all. The same reasoning bars artificial sweeteners unless the product is tested.
DHSS reads the statute as allowing the sale only by the person who prepared the food, or by a member of their household with extensive knowledge of the product — so that a customer's question can actually be answered. A hired helper at the table is not that person.
The definition itself requires selling « only directly to consumers ». Wholesale takes you out of the Cottage Law entirely and into the DHSS Manufactured Food programme, with its own inspections and rules.
A separate exemption, in the Missouri Food Code's definition of « food establishment », may cover other low-risk foods — fruit butters, sorghum, cracked nuts, packaged spices, dry soup mixes — but only where local law allows, and only your local public health agency can tell you. It carries a duty the Cottage Law does not: a clearly visible placard at the point of sale stating the food was prepared in a kitchen not subject to DHSS inspection.
Timeline: Immediate — no application, permit, inspection, or waiting period. A qualifying home operation may sell as soon as a compliant label (name, address, not-inspected statement) is affixed.
Cost: $0 — no permit required; Missouri issues no license or fee for a cottage food production operation under § 196.298.
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Make my Missouri label →Missouri does not fix the words — it fixes what the label has to say. The wording below is the one to use: “This product is prepared in a kitchen that is not subject to inspection by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services.” The state sets no minimum point size for it. Missouri prescribes content, not wording: § 196.298.4 asks for a statement that the food is not inspected by the department or local health department. The sentence quoted here is a safe formulation of that content, not a rule text: as of 2026-08-17 no cottage food labelling rule appears in the Missouri Code of State Regulations under § 196.298 (19 CSR 20-1 contains none, and the CSR/RSMo cross-reference index lists none), and health.mo.gov returns HTTP 403, so no DHSS-published wording could be read. Only the statutory sentence binds.
No. Missouri does not require a permit or registration number printed on the label.
At minimum: product name — the common name of the food; your business / producer name; the address of the cottage food operation; a complete ingredient list, in descending order by weight (sub-ingredients included); an allergen declaration — the 9 major FDA allergens, in the ingredient list or a “Contains:” line; net weight, in US customary and metric units; the state's required disclaimer (see below).
No. Missouri requires no state cottage food permit or registration. None. Section 196.298 imposes no fee of any kind, and no application, licence, permit or registration fee attaches to the cottage food exemption because there is nothing to apply for. Any fee a Missouri producer pays - a temporary food establishment permit at an off-site event, a sales tax bond, a local business licence - comes from a different authority than the cottage food statute.
Allowed: Baked goods, defined at section 196.298.1(1) as including "cookies, cakes, breads, danish, donuts, pastries, pies, and other items that are prepared by baking the item in an oven"; Canned jam or jelly; Dried herbs; Dried herb mixes; Separately, under the distinct exemption at section 261.241 RSMo (not under the cottage food law): jams, jellies and honey manufactured in the producer's domicile and sold directly by the manufacturer to the end consumer, where annual sales are $30,000 or less per domicile.
No cap under the cottage food law. Section 196.298 as currently in force contains no annual gross sales, revenue or volume limit anywhere in its six subsections; the former $50,000 annual gross income limit is no longer present in the current text. The statute's effective date on the Missouri Revisor of Statutes is August 28, 2022, with the history note "(L. 2014 S.B. 525, A.L. 2022 H.B. 1697)". The one dollar figure that does exist in Missouri home-food law belongs to the separate exemption at section 261.241 RSMo, which applies to sellers of jams, jellies and honey with "annual sales of $30,000 or less per domicile" - that figure governs section 261.241 only and does not limit a section 196.298 cottage food production operation.
No. CottageCompliance gives general information based on each state's published rules, dated to when we last verified them. Always confirm with your state or local agency before selling.
Source: Mo. Rev. Stat. § 196.298 (Missouri Revisor of Statutes; history « L. 2014 S.B. 525, A.L. 2022 H.B. 1697 »), cross-checked against the National Agricultural Law Center reprint. The struck income cap read in the truly-agreed HB 1697 (3826H.01T). Label items, excluded foods and the removal of the cap: Missouri DHSS, « Missouri Home-Based Kitchen Food Production Guidance », August 2023. Verified 2026-08-10. General information, not legal advice — confirm with your state or local agency before selling.