Colorado cottage food label requirements

Read that cap again, because Colorado writes it differently from every other state and people get it wrong constantly. It is not $10,000 total. It is $10,000 from each eligible food product. That changes on January 1, 2027, and there's a section below on exactly how.

The label Colorado actually requires

Under C.R.S. § 25-4-1614(3), every cottage food product you sell needs an affixed label with all of the following:

1. Identification of the product. The common name. "Sourdough boule," not "Mile High Magic."
2. Your name, the address where the food was prepared, and a current phone number or email address. Colorado offers no address-privacy substitute the way Texas does. The address where you baked it is the address that goes on the package. That changes on January 1, 2027: under HB26-1033 the label carries the county where the food was prepared instead of the physical address. If home-address privacy is why you've been hesitating, that's the date to watch.
3. The date the food was produced. Not a best-by date. The production date.
4. A complete list of ingredients. Sub-ingredients count. If your chocolate chips contain soy lecithin, that goes on the label.
5. The Colorado disclaimer, word for word.

Notice what isn't on that list: net weight, and a separate allergen "Contains" statement. Colorado folds allergens into the disclaimer itself rather than requiring a standalone declaration. Add a "Contains" statement anyway. It costs nothing, it's what buyers expect, and the day you outgrow this exemption you'll need it: milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans, and sesame, with tree nuts and fish named by species.

The exact disclaimer wording

This product was produced in a home kitchen that is not subject to state licensure or inspection and that may also process common food allergens such as tree nuts, peanuts, eggs, soy, wheat, milk, fish, and crustacean shellfish. This product is not intended for resale.

That is the full statutory string from § 25-4-1614(3). Sentence case, two sentences, both periods. Do not shorten it to the first clause. Do not drop the allergen list because your product has none. Do not swap in the wording you found on a Pinterest label template, which is usually another state's.

The second string, for your table

Colorado also makes you post a sign. Section 25-4-1614(3) requires a producer to conspicuously display a placard, sign, or card at the point of sale reading:

This product was produced in a home kitchen that is not subject to state licensure or inspection. This product is not intended for resale.

Shorter, no allergen clause. Two different strings for two different jobs, and market managers do check for the sign.

One caution about your sources. CDPHE's live Cottage Foods page publishes only this shorter string as the required label disclaimer, and it paraphrases the allergen requirement rather than quoting it. The statute controls, and the statute's long string at § 25-4-1614(3)(a)(V) is what belongs on the package. Use the long version above for labels and the short version for the point-of-sale sign. This is the same trap Washington and Indiana set with their own agency pages: the guidance is a summary, the statute is the law.

Where a Nutrition Facts panel becomes required

No US state requires a full Nutrition Facts panel on cottage food products. You need one when:

1. You make a nutrient content claim — "high protein," "low sugar," "keto," "sugar free." Any of these obligates the panel that substantiates it.
2. You make a health claim — connecting your food to a disease or health condition.
3. You outgrow your state's cottage food cap and move to a commercial kitchen. At that point you are a regular food manufacturer and the cottage exemption is gone.
4. You sell wholesale or into retail. Cottage exemptions are almost universally direct-to-consumer only.
5. You sell on Amazon or another marketplace that requires a panel. Amazon's requirement is contractual, not legal, and it does not care what your state says.

In Colorado, trigger three arrives first for most people, and it arrives early. A $10,000 ceiling on a single product is not a lot of granola. Trigger four is the second most common: Colorado's disclaimer literally says "not intended for resale," so the first coffee shop that wants to stock you ends the exemption.

Trigger one catches more people than the other four combined, and it catches them somewhere they don't expect. Under 21 CFR 101.9(j)(18), the exemption is void if the claim appears in advertising — not just on the package. Calling your granola "high protein" in an Instagram caption is enough to require the panel on the bag.

What you can and can't make in Colorado

Colorado uses a hybrid model. Section 25-4-1614(2)(b) names a list — pickled fruits and vegetables, spices, teas, dehydrated produce, nuts, seeds, honey, jams, jellies, preserves, fruit butter, flour, and baked goods including candies, fruit empanadas, and tortillas — and then adds a catch-all for other nonpotentially hazardous foods. So the practical test isn't "is it on the list," it's "does it require refrigeration." If it does, it's out.

Whole eggs are allowed too, capped at 250 dozen per month.

CDPHE's guidance extends the list to things the statute never names, including roasted coffee beans, freeze-dried produce, and buttercream made with ghee or vegetable oil rather than butter. That's agency interpretation of "nonpotentially hazardous," not statutory text, so confirm your specific product with CDPHE before you scale on it.

Prohibited, per CDPHE:

If your product is on that list, cottage food law is not your path in Colorado. Jerky makers, hot sauce makers, and anyone doing filled or refrigerated pastry need a licensed commercial or shared-use kitchen. Once you're operating out of one you're a food manufacturer under federal law, which means full labeling including a Nutrition Facts panel unless you qualify for the small business exemption below.

Where you can sell

Section 25-4-1614(2)(a) permits sales "only if the producer sells the foods directly to informed end consumers." No middleman, ever. The geographic limit is explicit in the statute at § 25-4-1614(2)(d): foods must be sold only in Colorado, and the sale must not involve interstate commerce. Unlike Texas, Colorado's statute doesn't name specific venues or dictate how the food reaches the buyer, so in-state delivery and in-state shipping both work.

Interstate is a no twice over. Colorado wrote the prohibition into its own statute, and separately, the moment a product crosses a state line it enters interstate commerce and FDA has authority over the whole operation that made it. A state exemption cannot exempt you from federal law.

The cap, the training, and the per-product math

The per-product structure is the thing to understand. If you sell blueberry muffins, banana bread, and chocolate chip cookies, each has its own $10,000 ceiling and you can gross $30,000 without leaving cottage food. Six products, $60,000. There is no aggregate limit in the current statute, and CDPHE treats reasonably distinct varieties as distinct products — so the practical strategy in Colorado has always been to widen the catalog rather than scale one hit.

The training is not optional. Section 25-4-1614(2)(c) requires a food safety course covering basic food handling, comparable to or given by CSU Extension or a state, county, or district public health agency. CSU Extension's cottage foods course runs 3.5 hours and issues a three-year certificate; a general ANSI-style food handler card also satisfies it. There is no registration, no permit, and no inspection of your kitchen.

What changes on January 1, 2027

Colorado passed HB26-1033, the Tamale Act, signed June 4, 2026. Most of the act took effect on passage, but the amendments to § 25-4-1614 take effect January 1, 2027. From that date:

• The revenue limit becomes $150,000 per calendar year, and the legislature's own summary describes it as what a producer may earn under the act each year rather than per product. Read alongside the bill text, which strikes the "each eligible food product" language, that converts Colorado from a per-product cap to a single aggregate cap.
• That $150,000 is indexed for inflation. Both the legislature's summary and the HB26-1033 fiscal note describe the new limit as "$150,000 or less per year, which the CDPHE must annually adjust for inflation." The current $10,000 per-product cap is not indexed and has never moved; the 2027 cap is. So $150,000 is the floor of the new ceiling, not a number that will quietly erode.
• The label carries the county of preparation instead of the physical address. No more publishing your home address on every package.
• Certain time-and-temperature-controlled foods become sellable, which is the whole point of the bill's nickname — tamales, burritos, and similar items, plus foods containing federally inspected meat.
• Annual registration with CDPHE becomes mandatory before you sell anything, and your department-issued registration number goes on the label along with a CDPHE website address.
• Producers selling temperature-controlled foods take additional training on time and temperature control.

If you currently sell more than fifteen distinct products at close to $10,000 each, the 2027 change is a ceiling reduction, not a raise. Narrow group, but if it's you, run the math before January. For everyone else this is a large expansion. Confirm the final numbers and the new label elements with CDPHE in late 2026 — implementing rules and the registration fee were not settled when this page was written.

When you outgrow cottage food

The cap isn't the only exit. Any of these ends the exemption:

• You cross $10,000 on one product and don't want to invent a fourth flavor.
• A shop, café, or grocery wants to stock you. Resale is barred outright.
• You want to ship to a customer in Wyoming or Kansas.
• You want to make sauce, jerky, cheesecake, or anything refrigerated.
• You want to say "high protein" on the bag.

Whichever comes first, the day after it happens you are a food manufacturer, and food manufacturers label under 21 CFR 101.9. Your label now needs a Nutrition Facts panel with a serving size pulled from the RACC table in 21 CFR 101.12 — not a serving size you picked. A discrete unit holding 200% to 300% of the RACC needs a dual-column panel.

You might still be exempt, even out of a commercial kitchen

21 CFR 101.9(j)(18) exempts small businesses from the Nutrition Facts requirement if you have fewer than 100 full-time equivalent employees and sell fewer than 100,000 units in the US in a 12-month period. You file an annual notice with FDA to claim it. FDA is blunt about the follow-up: "FDA DOES NOT NOTIFY FIRMS WHEN IT IS TIME TO FILE A NOTICE." That's on you.

There's a smaller carve-out in the same section: not an importer, fewer than 10 full-time equivalent employees, fewer than 10,000 units a year, and you file nothing at all.

The exemption is void — filed or not — for any product carrying a nutrient content claim, a health claim, or other nutrition information, on the label, in labeling, or in advertising. See FDA's food labeling guide.

If you've hit one of the triggers and need the panel itself, Nutrillius builds an FDA-compliant Nutrition Facts panel from your recipe in about a minute — $39 one time, no subscription. Compare that to $1,609–$1,724 for a single lab-analyzed sample at Medallion Labs, or $195 and a two-to-four week wait through a university extension lab.

Verify this yourself

Colorado is mid-rewrite. The cap, the food list, the registration requirement, and the label elements all change on January 1, 2027 under HB26-1033. Check before you print:

• CDPHE — Cottage Foods Act
• C.R.S. § 25-4-1614, full text
• HB26-1033, Expanding the Colorado Cottage Foods Act
• CSU Extension — Cottage Food Safety Training

Last reviewed August 4, 2026. If you're reading this in 2027 or later, the cap and the label elements on this page are out of date and you need the CDPHE page.