Cottage Food Label Requirements in Wyoming (2026)

Cottage food rules in Wyoming — the whole program

Who can sell homemade food in Wyoming

Wyoming does not have a 'cottage food law' in the sense the other forty-nine states use the phrase. It has the Wyoming Food Freedom Act, Wyo. Stat. Ann. §§ 11-49-101 through 11-49-104, codified as Title 11, Chapter 49, 'Marketing Homemade Foods'. The short title is statutory: § 11-49-101 provides that 'This act is known and may be cited as the "Wyoming Food Freedom Act."' It was enacted in 2015 (HB0056, effective March 3, 2015) and has been amended repeatedly since — 2017 (ch. 111, which repealed the old subsection (f)), 2020 (HB0084 / ch. 69, which repealed § 11-49-103(c)(ii) and opened third-party retail), 2021 (HB0118, which added the producer thresholds and the 'maximum extent permitted by federal law' clause at subsection (m)), and 2025 (the Wyoming PRIME Act, which added the dormant meat provisions at subsections (n) and (o)). The text quoted throughout this fiche was read from the Wyoming Legislature's own consolidated Title 11 PDF, generated 2026-05-09, so it reflects the law through the 2026 session. The structural difference matters more than any single rule. A typical cottage food statute says: here is a list of safe foods, here is a permit, here is a ceiling, stay inside them. The Food Freedom Act inverts that. Its operative provision, § 11-49-103(b), reads: 'Unless otherwise provided in this section, homemade food products produced, sold and consumed in compliance with the Wyoming Food Freedom Act shall be exempt from state licensure, permitting, inspection, packaging and labeling requirements.' That is a blanket exemption from five separate regulatory regimes at once, and it is not limited to a list of low-risk foods. Wyoming allows potentially hazardous food — the food every other state's cottage food law excludes — to be made in an uninspected home kitchen and sold. Raw milk is legal here. Home-canned goods are legal here. A quiche, a cream pie, a pot of soup, a tray of lasagna, a raw-milk cheese: all legal, provided the transaction obeys the Act's structure. The price of that freedom is that the entire regime hangs on one concept: the informed end consumer. § 11-49-102(a)(v) defines it as 'a person who is the last person to purchase any product, who does not resell the product and who has been informed that the product is not licensed, regulated or inspected.' Three cumulative elements. Last purchaser — so no sale to someone who will resell. No resale — so the product dies in that buyer's hands, legally speaking. And informed — the buyer must actually have been told the food is not licensed, regulated or inspected. Miss the third element and you have not merely committed a paperwork foul; you have fallen out of the Act entirely, and the default Wyoming food safety regime snaps back over you. The Wyoming Department of Agriculture's own Q&A puts this in terms no producer should need help interpreting: 'Failure to notify consumers means you are no longer operating under the WFFA and will be regulated pursuant to the standard Wyoming food safety requirements for licensure and compliance with the Wyoming Food Safety Rule.' Who qualifies as a producer is also defined, and the definition contains the only numerical limits in the Act. § 11-49-102(a)(vi): '"Producer" means any person who grows, harvests, prepares or processes any food or drink products on the person's owned or leased property, does not produce more than two hundred fifty thousand (250,000) individual food or drink products annually and does not exceed two hundred fifty thousand dollars ($250,000.00) in gross revenue annually from the food and drink products.' Read the words 'on the person's owned or leased property'. This is Wyoming's equivalent of the home-kitchen requirement, and it is broader than most: it does not say 'in your residence', it says on property you own or lease. Paired with § 11-49-102(a)(iv) — '"Homemade" means food that is prepared or processed in a private home kitchen, that is not licensed, inspected or regulated' — the picture is a private home kitchen on ground you own or lease. Note the negative definition: the kitchen qualifies because it is NOT licensed or inspected. A producer who obtains a commercial licence for the same kitchen takes that kitchen out of the 'homemade' definition for these purposes. There is no age requirement, no residency requirement written into the Act, and no citizenship or business-entity requirement. But there is an effective residency constraint hidden in the transaction rules: § 11-49-103(c)(iii) and (iv) require that transactions 'Occur only in Wyoming' and 'Not involve interstate commerce'. The Department's Q&A draws the obvious conclusion — asked 'Can out-of-state producers sell in Wyoming under the WFFA?' it answers 'No. WFFA transactions shall not involve interstate commerce.' In practice you need to be producing in Wyoming and selling in Wyoming. One more eligibility trap, and it is the one that catches people who think 'no licence' means 'no rules'. § 11-49-103(d) provides: 'Except for raw, unprocessed fruits and vegetables, food shall not be sold or used in any commercial food establishment unless the food has been labeled, licensed, packaged, regulated or inspected as required by law. Homemade or uninspected food shall not be served or utilized as an ingredient in a commercial food establishment.' You cannot sell your homemade jam to a restaurant to put on its cheese board. You cannot sell your uninspected butter to a bakery. The only thing that crosses that line is raw, unprocessed produce. 'Commercial food establishment' is defined outside Title 11, at § 35-7-110(a)(xxxi), as 'any place or any area of any establishment that is a wholesale or retail business where foods, drugs, devices and cosmetics are displayed for sale, manufactured, processed, packed, held or stored' — with three express carve-outs that exist precisely to make the Food Freedom Act work: '(A) Any farmers market; (B) Any producer or informed consumer engaged in transactions pursuant to W.S. 11-49-103; or (C) Any retail space selling homemade food that is separate from a commercial food establishment in accordance with rules and regulations adopted by the department pursuant to W.S. 11-49-103(d).'

What you may and may not sell

Allowed:

• The Act contains no positive list of permitted foods. This is the single most important thing to understand about Wyoming and the reason most national cottage-food comparison charts get it wrong. § 11-49-103(b) exempts 'homemade food products' generally; the drafting technique is prohibition-by-exception, so the correct method is to start from 'everything' and subtract only what § 11-49-103 expressly removes.
• Non-potentially hazardous food, defined at § 11-49-102(a)(x) as 'food that does not require time or temperature control for safety including limiting pathogenic microorganism growth or toxin formation.' The statutory illustration is open-ended — it 'includes, but is not limited to, jams, uncut fruits and vegetables, pickled vegetables, hard candies, fudge, nut mixes, granola, dry soup mixes excluding meat based soup mixes, coffee beans, popcorn and baked goods that do not include dairy or meat frosting or filling or other potentially hazardous frosting or filling'. This is the category that unlocks the widest sales channels, including third-party retail shops and grocery stores.
• Potentially hazardous food — the whole TCS category. § 11-49-102(a)(xi) defines it as 'food that requires time or temperature control for safety' and gives as examples 'foods requiring refrigeration, dairy products, quiches, pizzas, frozen doughs, meat and cooked vegetables and beans'. Wyoming permits these under the Act. The consequence is not that they are unrestricted but that their sales channel is narrower: under § 11-49-103(c)(i), the seller of a potentially hazardous homemade item, other than eggs and dairy, must be the producer or the producer's designated agent, never a third-party shop.
• Raw milk and products made from raw milk. Dairy is named in the statute repeatedly — in § 11-49-103(c)(i), (c)(vi), (e) and (k) — and always as something that may be sold, including through third parties. The Department of Agriculture's published Q&A answers the question directly: 'Q. Does this Act allow the sale of raw milk and products made from raw milk? A. Yes.' Wyoming is one of the few states where a home producer may lawfully sell raw milk to a consumer without a herd-share fiction.
• Home-canned and home-preserved foods, including low-acid canned goods. There is no acidity test, no pH ceiling, no scheduled-process filing and no requirement to use a tested recipe anywhere in the Act. Note the contrast with the general Wyoming food definitions at § 35-7-110(a)(xxx), which impose a pH of 4.6 or less on 'not potentially hazardous food' for regular regulatory purposes; the Food Freedom Act uses its own definition at § 11-49-102(a)(x), which contains no pH figure. This is genuine legal freedom and genuine botulism risk, and the two facts sit side by side.
• Eggs. Ungraded eggs may be sold, including through third-party retail. The Department's guidance is that existing federal and state exemptions already permitted this and continue to apply: 'Eggs must be clean and refrigerated. If desired, clean cartons in good condition may be reused if all labeling from original use is marked out. The carton should be labeled with the name and address of the producer, a packaging date and state "ungraded" and "keep refrigerated."' Treat that carton wording as an egg-specific practice recommended by the regulator, not as a Food Freedom Act mandate.
• Poultry and poultry products, under § 11-49-103(c)(v)(A), subject to three conditions stated in the statute: '(I) The producer slaughters not more than one thousand (1,000) poultry of his own raising during any one (1) calendar year; (II) The producer does not engage in buying or selling poultry products other than those produced from poultry of his own raising; and (III) The poultry product is not adulterated or misbranded.' The 1,000-bird ceiling mirrors the federal Poultry Products Inspection Act producer/grower exemption, and the Department's Q&A frames it that way — the state exemption only works because a matching federal exemption exists.
• Domestic rabbit meat, expressly permitted by § 11-49-103(c)(v)(D). Rabbit is not an 'amenable species' under federal meat inspection law, which is why it can be carved out where beef cannot.
• Farm-raised fish, under § 11-49-103(c)(v)(E), 'provided: (I) The fish is raised in accordance with title 23 of the Wyoming statutes; and (II) The fish is not catfish.' Catfish is excluded because it was brought under USDA meat-inspection jurisdiction. Wild-caught fish is a different question and is prohibited (see prohibited_foods).
• Live animals, and portions of live animals sold before slaughter for future delivery — § 11-49-103(c)(v)(B) and (C). This is the mechanism by which a Wyoming consumer legally obtains beef or pork from a local ranch: buy the animal, or a share of it, alive. The Department's guidance adds the practical conditions: processing must be done at a Wyoming or federally inspected and licensed facility, 'Change in ownership of the animal (or portion thereof) must take place before the animal is slaughtered', the product 'must be labeled "not for sale"', and it 'can only be delivered to the person(s) who bought the animal'. Wyoming Livestock Board rules on change of ownership and brand inspection continue to apply — § 11-49-103(h) says nothing in the Act 'shall be construed to change the requirements for brand inspection or animal health inspections.'
• Meat obtained through an animal share, under the separate section § 11-49-104. An 'animal share' is defined at § 11-49-102(a)(ix) as 'an ownership interest in an animal or herd of animals created by a written contract between an informed end consumer and a farmer or rancher that includes a bill of sale to the consumer for an ownership interest in the animal or herd and a boarding provision under which the consumer boards the animal or herd with the farmer or rancher for care and processing'. § 11-49-104(a) then says the acquisition of meat this way 'shall not constitute the sale of meat products in contravention of this act' if four conditions are met: the meat is received from the farm or ranch where the animal is located, received by or on behalf of a share owner, and obtained from that particular animal or herd; ownership is established before slaughter and slaughter complies with § 11-23-102(a) where applicable; 'A prominent warning statement that the meat has not been inspected is delivered to the informed end consumer with the meat or is displayed on a label affixed to the meat packaging'; and information about herd-health and processing standards is provided to the consumer. Two hard limits follow: § 11-49-104(b), 'No person who obtains meat in accordance with this section shall sell, donate or commercially redistribute the meat', and § 11-49-104(c), no farmer or rancher 'shall publish any statement that implies the department of agriculture's approval or endorsement'.
• Drink products. The Act says 'food or drink products' throughout, and the producer definition is written in those terms. Non-alcoholic beverages, kombucha, syrups and the like are within the ordinary reading. Alcohol is governed by Title 12 and by federal TTB permitting, which the Food Freedom Act does not touch.

Not allowed under the program:

• Meat products, as the general rule — § 11-49-103(c)(v) provides that transactions shall 'Not involve the sale of meat products, with the following exceptions', and then lists poultry, live animals, pre-slaughter portions, rabbit, farm-raised fish, animal shares, and the dormant subsection (n). Anything outside those exceptions is out. The Department of Agriculture's Q&A states the point plainly: 'Q. Can meat such as beef, pork, lamb, or goat be sold under this act? A. No. Meat and meat products must be slaughtered, processed and labeled in a Wyoming state or federally inspected meat plant.'
• Beef, pork, lamb and goat meat from on-farm or custom slaughter — as of this fiche's verification date, still prohibited, notwithstanding that the statute now contains text purporting to allow it. § 11-49-103(n) (the Wyoming PRIME Act) would let a producer sell meat from 'cattle, sheep, swine or goats raised by the producer that were slaughtered on the premises of the producer or at a custom slaughter facility'. But § 11-49-103(o) makes subsection (n) conditional: it 'shall be effective on the date that the governor, on advice of the attorney general, certifies to the secretary of state that the sale of [such] meat products ... is legalized under federal law', and defines that trigger as 'either the passage of a federal law that allows direct-to-consumer sales of uninspected meat products or the issuance of a final decision by a federal court with jurisdiction over this state that declares that the federal prohibition on direct-to-consumer sales is unconstitutional or otherwise invalid.' The federal PRIME Act has not passed. No certification was found. Treat § 11-49-103(n) as dormant law and do not sell custom-slaughtered red meat on its strength.
• Meat-based soup mixes — expressly excluded from the non-potentially hazardous list at § 11-49-102(a)(x) ('dry soup mixes excluding meat based soup mixes'). A dry mix containing bouillon or meat powder is not in the third-party-retail-eligible category.
• Catfish — § 11-49-103(c)(v)(E)(II). Catfish is subject to USDA inspection as an amenable species.
• Wild game, wild birds and wild fish. Not excluded by the Food Freedom Act itself but by Wyoming game law: the Department's Q&A cites § 23-3-302, which 'prohibits the sale or barter of wild game, animals, birds, or fish.' Your elk is not a product.
• Anything sold to a commercial food establishment, or used as an ingredient in one, except raw unprocessed fruits and vegetables — § 11-49-103(d). This is a prohibition on a channel rather than on a food, but it removes an entire class of business plan: no supplying restaurants, cafés, caterers or bakeries with homemade product.
• Potentially hazardous foods sold through a third-party retail shop or grocery store — other than eggs and dairy. § 11-49-103(c)(i) is precise: 'The seller of a homemade food item consisting of potentially hazardous food, except eggs and dairy products, shall be the producer of the item or a designated agent of the producer.' Your quiche can be sold by you or your designated agent; it cannot be put on a grocer's shelf and sold by the grocer.
• Anything crossing a state line. § 11-49-103(c)(iii) and (iv): transactions shall 'Occur only in Wyoming' and 'Not involve interstate commerce'. The Department's Q&A: 'Q. Can any of the products be shipped interstate? A. No.' Mail order to a Colorado address is not a grey area.
• Food prepared on-site at a farmers market. Per the Department's Q&A: 'No, this becomes a temporary food stand and must be licensed through state inspection and use only food obtained in accordance with federal and state food safety law. The only exemption to this is for a person to cook a product prepared in a home kitchen and given out as samples at the farmers market.' Cooking at your booth is a different licensing category from selling what you cooked at home.
• Any product resold by the buyer. The 'informed end consumer' definition at § 11-49-102(a)(v) requires a person 'who does not resell the product'. Selling to a reseller is not a Food Freedom Act transaction at all. For animal-share meat this is reinforced by an express prohibition on the consumer at § 11-49-104(b), and for meat under subsection (n) by the warning statement required at (n)(iii)(B): 'An informed end consumer who obtains meat products under this act agrees not to sell, donate or commercially redistribute the meat.'
• Any product whose label or marketing implies state endorsement. § 11-49-103(n)(iv) and § 11-49-104(c) both forbid publishing statements implying the Wyoming Department of Agriculture's approval or endorsement of the meat. Do not put a state seal, 'state approved' or 'inspected' on anything sold under this Act.

How much you may sell

Wyoming's ceiling is not framed as a sales cap on an exemption; it is built into the definition of who counts as a 'producer' at all. § 11-49-102(a)(vi) defines a producer as a person who, among other things, 'does not produce more than two hundred fifty thousand (250,000) individual food or drink products annually and does not exceed two hundred fifty thousand dollars ($250,000.00) in gross revenue annually from the food and drink products.' Read that as two independent ceilings joined by 'and', both of which must hold. The first is a unit count: 250,000 individual food or drink products in a year. The second is money: $250,000.00 in gross revenue annually from the food and drink products. Breach either one and you are no longer a 'producer' within the meaning of the Act — which means you are no longer within § 11-49-103(b)'s exemption from licensure, permitting, inspection, packaging and labeling, for anything, not merely for the excess. There is no tier above this and no scaled-up permit inside the Act. The next step up is ordinary licensure under the Wyoming Food Safety Rule. Three practical readings. First, 'gross revenue', not profit: ingredients, booth fees, packaging, fuel and card-processing fees are not deducted. Second, the revenue test is limited 'from the food and drink products' — it is not a household income test, so a producer's wage income or unrelated business income does not count against it. Third, the unit test is a real constraint for high-volume low-price items. A producer selling cookies individually at a dollar apiece hits 250,000 units long before $250,000 in revenue; a producer selling $40 wheels of raw-milk cheese hits the dollar ceiling at 6,250 units. Whichever comes first governs. There is no statutory guidance on what constitutes one 'individual' product for a multi-pack, and the Act does not define it — if you package a dozen rolls in one bag, whether that is one product or twelve is genuinely unresolved and worth asking Consumer Health Services in writing. Both numbers entered the statute with the 2021 amendment (HB0118) and are quoted identically in Teton County Public Health's own Food Freedom FAQ, which reproduces § 11-49-102(a)(vi) verbatim. There is no annual reporting obligation attached to either ceiling — no one asks you to file your revenue — but the ceilings are jurisdictional in effect, so a producer approaching them should be counting deliberately rather than discovering the breach during an enforcement conversation. Nothing in the Act requires records; nothing in the Act protects a producer who cannot show which side of the line they were on.

Where you may sell

• Farmers markets — the paradigm case, named in the purpose clause at § 11-49-103(a) and in the permitted-location list at § 11-49-103(c)(vi). 'Farmers market' is defined by cross-reference: § 11-49-102(a)(ii) points to § 35-7-110(a)(xxviii), which reads '"Farmers market" means a common facility or area where several vendors may gather on a regular, recurring basis to sell a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, locally grown farm products and other items directly to consumers'. The Department's Q&A draws out the two consequences: a single vendor standing alone is not a farmers market ('Q. Is one vendor a farmers market? A. No.'), and markets themselves remain 'subject to inspection for compliance with federal, state or local food safety regulations'. Market managers may and do impose their own conditions.
• Farms, ranches, the producer's home, and the producer's office — all four are named in § 11-49-103(c)(vi). Selling from your own kitchen door is the core protected transaction.
• A retail space at the ranch, farm or home where the food is produced. § 11-49-103(d) says expressly that 'Nothing in this section shall prohibit the sale of homemade food from a retail space located at the ranch, farm or home where the food is produced'. This is the farm-store channel, and it can carry potentially hazardous food, because the producer is the seller.
• Third-party retail — shops and grocery stores — but only for non-potentially hazardous food, eggs and dairy products. § 11-49-103(c)(i): 'The seller of eggs, dairy products or a homemade food product consisting of non-potentially hazardous food may be the producer of the item, a designated agent of the producer or a third party vendor including a retail shop or grocery store as long as the sale is made in compliance with this act.' This is the 2020 reform (HB0084) that made Wyoming genuinely different from every other state: a homemade jar of jam or a bottle of raw milk can sit on a commercial grocer's shelf. Two conditions attach at § 11-49-103(k): the food 'shall not be displayed or offered for sale on the same shelf or display as food produced in a licensed establishment' and it 'shall be clearly and prominently labeled' with the statutory sentence (see registration/labeling).
• Designated agents — the Act's answer to consignment and to producers who cannot staff a booth. § 11-49-102(a)(xii): '"Designated agent" means a person or consignment model market or food freedom store designated by the producer to facilitate producer to consumer transactions including marketing, transport, storage and delivery of food or drink products. A designated agent shall be named in writing by the producer and shall not take ownership of any food or drink product.' Two operative requirements: the appointment must be in writing, and the agent never takes title. Because the agent is not the seller in the ownership sense, an agent may handle potentially hazardous food that a third-party vendor could not.
• Any location the producer and the informed end consumer agree to — § 11-49-103(c)(vi) closes with this catch-all, and the definition of 'delivery' at § 11-49-102(a)(i) echoes it: delivery 'may occur by the producer's designated agent at a farm, ranch, farmers market, home, office or any location agreed to between the producer and the informed end consumer.' A parking-lot handoff, a workplace drop, a delivery to the buyer's door: all within the Act, so long as the buyer is informed and the transaction happens in Wyoming.
• Internet and telephone ordering, with in-state delivery only. The Act does not mention the internet; the Department's Q&A supplies the answer that follows from § 11-49-103(c)(iii)-(iv): 'Q. Can a home producer do internet sales under this Act? A. Yes, but only for delivery within Wyoming.' You may take orders and payment online. You may not ship out of state, and you should not accept an order that will be delivered outside Wyoming.
• Roadside stands — not addressed by the statute; the Department's Q&A says 'The Food Freedom Act does not specifically prohibit roadside stands.' That is a carefully hedged answer, not an authorisation. A stand at your own farm is plainly within '(c)(vi)'; a stand on a highway pull-off away from your property rests on the 'any location agreed to' clause and on the absence of a prohibition.
• Samples at a farmers market — permitted, and no sampling licence is required: 'Q. Is a sampling license required for giving out samples of WFFA products? A. No.' The Department also allows the one on-site cooking exception here, for cooking a home-prepared product to hand out as samples.
• Catering — sharply limited. The Department's Q&A: 'Q. Can a person cater out of their home under this act? A. Under the Act, a producer may only cater to a private home.' That answer maps onto the 'home consumption' definition at § 11-49-102(a)(iii): 'consumed within a private home, or food from a private home that is only consumed by family members, employees or nonpaying guests'. Catering a public event or a commercial venue is outside the Act.
• CLOSED: sales into any commercial food establishment — restaurants, cafés, bakeries, caterers — except raw unprocessed fruits and vegetables (§ 11-49-103(d)). This is the boundary the 2026 interim legislature is now working on; see local_rules.
• CLOSED: any sale to a buyer who will resell, any interstate sale, and any sale where the buyer has not been informed. These are not channels with conditions; they are outside the Act.

Permit, registration and fees

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

1. There is nothing to file. This is the honest answer and it should not be softened. § 11-49-103(b) exempts compliant homemade food from 'state licensure, permitting, inspection, packaging and labeling requirements'. Wyoming has no cottage food permit, no registration form, no application fee, no annual renewal and no producer registry. Any website telling a Wyoming producer to obtain a 'cottage food license' is describing another state.
2. Step one is therefore not paperwork but classification. Decide, for each product, whether it is non-potentially hazardous under § 11-49-102(a)(x) or potentially hazardous under § 11-49-102(a)(xi). Everything downstream — who may sell it, and whether a grocery shelf is available to you — turns on that single call. If you cannot classify a product confidently, § 11-49-103(j) is your route: 'Nothing in this act shall preclude an agency from providing assistance, consultation or inspection, at the request of the producer.' You may ask CHS voluntarily, and asking does not put you under licensure.
3. Step two: confirm you are a 'producer' as defined. Production on property you own or lease, in a private home kitchen that is not licensed or inspected, under 250,000 units and under $250,000.00 gross revenue a year.
4. Step three: build the notice into the sale, because this is the one duty the Act genuinely imposes on a direct seller. § 11-49-103(e): 'The producer shall inform the end consumer that any food product or food sold at a farmers market or through ranch, farm or home based sales pursuant to this act is not certified, labeled, licensed, packaged, regulated or inspected.' Six adjectives — certified, labeled, licensed, packaged, regulated, inspected — and the substance of all six should be conveyed. The Act does not prescribe how. The Department's Q&A confirms this: 'The Wyoming Food Freedom Act does not state how the producer shall inform the end consumer just that they shall inform the end consumer.' A prominent booth sign, a card handed over with the product, a line on the order page and on the receipt, or a sticker on the jar all work; belt and braces is better, because if a dispute arises the burden of showing the consumer was informed is realistically yours. Keep a photograph of your signage.
5. Step four, only if you are selling through a third-party retail shop or grocery store: apply the label mandated by § 11-49-103(k). For sales of non-potentially hazardous food and dairy products at a retail location or grocery store, the food 'shall be clearly and prominently labeled with "this food was made in a home kitchen, is not regulated or inspected and may contain allergens"'. That is the exact statutory string and it is the only place in the entire Act where verbatim label wording is commanded. The statute sets no minimum type size — the standard is 'clearly and prominently', which is a legibility test, not a point-size test. Also honour the placement rule in the same subsection: the product may not sit 'on the same shelf or display as food produced in a licensed establishment'. Talk to the store manager about this before delivery; it is the store's shelf and the store's problem too.
6. Step five, only if the retail space sells potentially hazardous homemade food AND is associated with a commercial food establishment or offers any inspected product: § 11-49-103(d) then requires compliance with WDA rules, which the statute says shall require '(i) That the retail space be physically separated from the commercial food establishment with a separate door and separate cash register or point of sale; (ii) That each separate space shall include signs or other markings clearly indicating which spaces are offering inspected items for sale and which spaces are uninspected; (iii) Separation of coolers, freezers and warehouse or other storage areas to prohibit the intermingling of inspected and uninspected products; (iv) Any other requirements specified by the department of agriculture'. A retail space meeting those conditions is expressly excluded from the definition of 'commercial food establishment' by § 35-7-110(a)(xxxi)(C). Anyone building this configuration should obtain the current WDA rule text from CHS directly, since the statute delegates the detail.
7. Step six, only for a retail space selling homemade food generally: § 11-49-103(d) imposes a duty on the space itself — it 'shall inform the end consumer that the homemade food has not been inspected and shall display a sign indicating that the homemade food has not been inspected.' This duty is separate from, and additional to, the third-party seller's own notice duty under the second sentence of § 11-49-103(e).
8. Step seven, only if you are using a designated agent: name the agent in writing, per § 11-49-102(a)(xii), and make sure the arrangement does not transfer ownership of the product to the agent. Keep the written designation.
9. Step eight, only for animal shares: put the share in writing with a bill of sale and a boarding provision, establish ownership before slaughter, deliver the prominent uninspected-meat warning with the meat or on the package label, and give the consumer the herd-health and processing standards information. All four are conditions of § 11-49-104(a), and failing any one of them turns the transaction back into a prohibited meat sale.

Fee: $0. There is no application, registration, licence or renewal fee under the Wyoming Food Freedom Act, because there is no application, registration, licence or renewal. Costs a producer will actually meet are private ones: farmers market stall fees, packaging, printing signage and labels, product liability insurance if any, and any city or county business licence or sales tax registration, which are separate regimes the Act does not exempt.

Renewal: Not applicable — nothing is issued, so nothing expires. The practical annual task is arithmetic rather than paperwork: at the close of each year confirm you stayed under both § 11-49-102(a)(vi) ceilings, and re-read § 11-49-103 for amendments, because this chapter has been amended in 2017, 2020, 2021 and 2025 and a further expansion bill is being drafted for the 2027 session.

Food safety training

None is required. The Wyoming Food Freedom Act contains no food safety training requirement, no food handler card, no manager certification, no course, no test and no attestation. Search § 11-49-101 through § 11-49-104 for the words training, certification, course or education and they do not appear. This follows from the structure of § 11-49-103(b), which exempts compliant homemade food from 'state licensure, permitting, inspection, packaging and labeling requirements' — and from the drafting choice not to substitute an education requirement for the licence, as several other states did. Two things are worth saying alongside that fact rather than instead of it. First, the absence of a training mandate does not create a safe harbour. The exemption is from licensure and inspection, not from liability. Wyoming's Q&A puts the question and declines to soften the answer: 'Q. Could a producer potentially face liability if an illness occurs as a result of their WFFA product? A. Potentially yes, this is a question that should be further directed to your attorney.' Nor does it displace the general prohibitions on adulterated and misbranded food in § 35-7-111, which apply to food in commerce independent of licensure — and the poultry exemption at § 11-49-103(c)(v)(A)(III) expressly requires that 'The poultry product is not adulterated or misbranded'. Second, Wyoming permits home producers to make the highest-risk foods in American food regulation — raw milk, home-canned low-acid vegetables, custard fillings, cooked rice and bean dishes — with no training whatsoever. A producer working in those categories who has not read up on water-bath versus pressure canning, on Clostridium botulinum in low-acid canning, on the two-hour/four-hour rule for TCS food, and on cross-contact allergen control is relying on luck, not on law. § 11-49-103(j) is the provision to use if you want help: 'Nothing in this act shall preclude an agency from providing assistance, consultation or inspection, at the request of the producer.' Consumer Health Services can be asked to look at a process or a product voluntarily. The University of Wyoming Extension and the Nutrition and Food Safety programme run canning and food preservation education in-state; none of it is mandatory and none of it is a certificate the state will ask to see.

Inspection

There is no routine inspection, and no right of entry to your kitchen, under this Act. § 11-49-103(b) exempts compliant homemade food from 'inspection' by name, and the definition of 'homemade' at § 11-49-102(a)(iv) is itself built on the kitchen being 'not licensed, inspected or regulated'. No pre-opening visit, no annual inspection, no water test, no septic approval, no separate-kitchen requirement, no pet prohibition written into the statute. This is the furthest any US state goes. Four qualifications, each grounded in text. (1) Foodborne illness investigation survives entirely. § 11-49-103(g): 'Nothing in this act shall be construed to impede the Wyoming department of health in any investigation of food borne illness.' If your product is implicated in an outbreak, the Department of Health may investigate you exactly as it would a licensed establishment. The Act protects you from routine oversight, not from consequences. (2) Inspection on request is available and voluntary. § 11-49-103(j) preserves an agency's ability to provide 'assistance, consultation or inspection, at the request of the producer'. Some producers use this deliberately, as a quality signal or before scaling up. (3) Venues remain inspectable even when you are not. The Department's Q&A confirms farmers markets are 'subject to inspection for compliance with federal, state or local food safety regulations'. A grocery store carrying your jam is a licensed establishment and is inspected; its handling of your product, its shelf separation under § 11-49-103(k), and the signage duty under § 11-49-103(d) are all things an inspector can look at. In practice, this is where most Food Freedom Act friction actually occurs — at the retailer, not the producer. (4) Brand inspection and animal health inspection are untouched. § 11-49-103(h): 'Nothing in this act shall be construed to change the requirements for brand inspection or animal health inspections.' Anyone selling live animals or animal shares still deals with the Wyoming Livestock Board. The real enforcement mechanism in Wyoming is not the inspector but the exit condition. Every protection in the Act is conditional on the transaction complying with the Act — § 11-49-103(b) says 'produced, sold and consumed in compliance with the Wyoming Food Freedom Act'. Sell to a reseller, sell across a state line, sell potentially hazardous food through a grocer, sell into a restaurant, or fail to inform the consumer, and you have not violated a Food Freedom Act rule so much as stepped outside the Act, at which point the ordinary Wyoming Food Safety Rule and the licensure requirement apply to you retroactively for that activity. That is what the Department means when it writes that failure to notify consumers means 'you are no longer operating under the WFFA and will be regulated pursuant to the standard Wyoming food safety requirements for licensure'.

What your city or county may add

The Food Freedom Act preempts nothing expressly. It removes state licensure, permitting, inspection, packaging and labeling requirements for compliant homemade food (§ 11-49-103(b)), and it constrains the Department of Agriculture from writing standards more stringent than USDA's (§ 11-49-103(m)) — but it contains no clause saying counties and municipalities may not regulate, and no clause overriding zoning, business licensing or taxation. So three separate local layers can still bite. First, food inspection jurisdiction is split. Consumer Health Services inspects statewide except where local programmes exist: the city of Laramie and Laramie, Natrona, Teton, Sweetwater and Sublette counties operate their own. That is why the two most widely circulated Food Freedom Act FAQs in the state are published not by WDA but by Casper-Natrona County Health and Teton County — those health departments are the ones producers there actually meet. Their published guidance is helpful and largely faithful to the statute, but check its date: the Casper-hosted WDA Q&A is stamped 'Revised 03/20/17' and therefore predates the 2020 and 2021 amendments entirely, and its answer that sales 'may not occur within commercial food establishments' is now incomplete because § 35-7-110(a)(xxxi) has since been amended to carve separated homemade-food retail spaces out of that definition. The Teton County FAQ, dated 3/30/23, is more current but compresses the notice rules — its answer to 'What are the requirements on how to inform the end consumer?' gives only the § 11-49-103(k) retail label sentence, which is the correct answer for a grocery shelf and an over-narrow answer for a farmers market booth, where § 11-49-103(e)'s six-adjective disclosure is the governing duty. When a local FAQ and the statute diverge, the statute governs; when you cannot reconcile them, get the local health department's position in writing before market day. Second, farmers markets themselves. A market is a private or municipal operation with its own rules, and nothing in the Act obliges a market to accept Food Freedom Act product or to accept it without conditions. Markets in Wyoming commonly require vendors to sign an acknowledgement, to post the uninspected-food notice in a specified format, to carry liability insurance, or to keep TCS items in mechanical refrigeration. Those are contractual conditions of the stall, not law, and they are enforceable as such. Third, the ordinary municipal layer that no cottage food law touches anywhere: zoning and home occupation permits, sign ordinances, parking, fire code if you install commercial equipment, a city or county business licence, and Wyoming sales tax registration with the Department of Revenue. Homemade food is tangible personal property; the Food Freedom Act does not exempt it from sales tax, and 'no licence' is not 'no vendor number'. Renters and HOA residents should also read their lease and covenants — a private restriction on operating a business from the dwelling is enforceable regardless of state food law. Finally, watch the legislature. The Act's boundary at § 11-49-103(d) — no homemade food into commercial food establishments — produced a live controversy in 2026 when a Cody creamery was ordered to stop selling lattes made with its own raw milk at its storefront. On July 29, 2026 the Joint Agriculture, State and Public Lands and Water Resources Committee voted to advance a draft bill creating a 'producer-retailer' category, which would let homemade food producers sell at commercial locations such as restaurants and coffee shops under an exemption granted or denied by the Department of Agriculture's director. Two members dissented. If enacted in the 2027 session, the reported effective date would be July 2027. As of this fiche's verification date it is a committee draft and not law; do not plan a storefront around it.

Program sources: Wyo. Stat. Ann. §§ 11-49-101 through 11-49-104, Title 11 ch. 49 'Marketing Homemade Foods' — full chapter text read verbatim: § 11-49-101 short title; § 11-49-102(a)(i)-(xiv) definitions including 'delivery', 'farmers market', 'home consumption', 'homemade', 'informed end consumer', 'producer' (250,000 units / $250,000.00 gross revenue), 'transaction', 'process', 'animal share', 'non-potentially hazardous food', 'potentially hazardous food', 'designated agent', 'custom slaughter facility'; § 11-49-103(a) purpose, (b) exemption from licensure/permitting/inspection/packaging/labeling, (c)(i)-(vi) transaction rules including the meat exceptions, (d) commercial food establishment bar and separated-retail-space rules, (e) producer and third-party seller disclosure duty, (g) Department of Health foodborne illness investigations, (h) brand inspection savings clause, (j) consultation/inspection on request, (k) retail label 'this food was made in a home kitchen, is not regulated or inspected and may contain allergens' plus shelf separation, (m) federal-ceiling clause, (n) PRIME Act meat provisions, (o) contingent effective date; § 11-49-104(a)-(c) animal shares. Source: Wyoming Legislature consolidated Title 11 PDF, downloaded HTTP 200, 756,013 bytes, PDF creation date 2026-05-09, extracted locally with pdftotext — https://www.wyoleg.gov/statutes/compress/title11.pdf · Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 35-7-110(a)(xxviii) definition of 'farmers market' (incorporated into the Act by § 11-49-102(a)(ii)), § 35-7-110(a)(xxx) 'not potentially hazardous food' with its pH 4.6 test used for general regulatory purposes, and § 35-7-110(a)(xxxi) 'commercial food establishment' with the three carve-outs at (A) farmers markets, (B) producers and informed consumers transacting under § 11-49-103, and (C) separated homemade-food retail spaces; § 35-7-111 prohibited acts (adulteration and misbranding). Source: Wyoming Legislature consolidated Title 35 PDF, downloaded HTTP 200, extracted locally with pdftotext — https://www.wyoleg.gov/statutes/compress/title35.pdf · Wyoming Department of Agriculture, 'Wyoming Food Freedom Act' question-and-answer sheet, 28 questions, stamped 'Revised 03/20/17' — source of the Department's positions on sales locations, the meaning of 'informed end consumer', roadside stands, raw milk ('Q. Does this Act allow the sale of raw milk and products made from raw milk? A. Yes.'), poultry and the USDA Poultry Products Inspection Act, red meat ('Meat and meat products must be slaughtered, processed and labeled in a Wyoming state or federally inspected meat plant'), live-animal and custom-portion sales, wild game under § 23-3-302, interstate shipping, out-of-state producers, home catering to a private home, on-site cooking at markets, internet sales for in-state delivery only, ungraded egg carton practice, sampling without a licence, rabbit meat, and the consequence of failing to inform consumers. PDF downloaded HTTP 200, 94,652 bytes, read locally — https://casperpublichealth.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/wyoming-food-freedom-act-q-and-a.pdf · Teton County (Wyoming) Public Health, 'Frequently Asked Questions for Operating Under the Wyoming Food Freedom Act at Markets', dated 3/30/23, noting that 'House Bill No. HB118 amended the Wyoming Food Freedom Act – WS-49-101 – 104 during the 2021 General Session' and reproducing the § 11-49-102(a)(vi) producer definition with the 250,000-unit and $250,000.00 thresholds verbatim. PDF downloaded HTTP 200, 466,601 bytes, read locally — https://tetoncountywy.gov/DocumentCenter/View/25217/Frequently-Asked-Questions-for-Operating-Under-the-Wyoming-Food-Freedom-Act-at-Markets-3-30-23 · Wyoming Department of Agriculture, Consumer Health Services division page — division structure (CHS Information, Food Safety, Meat & Poultry, Dairy Program, Pools; CHS inspectors by county), licensing contact 307-777-7211, and departmental address and main line: Wyoming Department of Agriculture, 2219 Carey Avenue, Cheyenne, WY 82002-0100, (307) 777-7321, fax (307) 777-6593. Read live, HTTP 200 — https://agriculture.wy.gov/consumer-health-services · Wyoming Public Media, 'Wyoming Food Freedom Act may extend reach to restaurants and coffee shops', July 31, 2026 — reporting the Joint Agriculture, State and Public Lands & Water Resources Committee's July 29, 2026 vote to advance a draft creating a 'producer-retailer' exemption administered by the Department of Agriculture's director, arising from the Hippy Cow Creamery raw-milk latte dispute in Cody, with two members dissenting and a reported July 2027 effective date if enacted. Used only for the pending-legislation paragraph; not law — https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/natural-resources-energy/2026-07-31/expansion-to-wyoming-food-freedom-act-considered-in-new-committee-bill · Background on the amendment history (2015 HB0056 effective March 3, 2015; 2017 ch. 111; 2020 HB0084 / ch. 69 opening third-party retail and wholesale of non-perishable foods; 2021 HB0118 adding the producer thresholds and the 'maximum extent permitted by federal law' clause; 2025 Wyoming PRIME Act adding § 11-49-103(n)-(o)) is corroborated in part by the repealer notes inside the codified text itself ('Repealed by Laws 2020, ch. 69, § 2' at § 11-49-103(c)(ii); 'Repealed by Laws 2017, ch. 111, § 2' at § 11-49-103(f)) and in part by secondary summaries; Justia (https://law.justia.com/codes/wyoming/title-11/chapter-49/section-11-49-103/) and the Institute for Justice Wyoming page (https://ij.org/issues/economic-liberty/homemade-food-seller/wyoming/) both returned HTTP 403 and could not be read directly, so the dates are orientation, not citation.