Connecticut cottage food label requirements

There are five situations where the answer flips and you do need a panel. They're below, after the part you actually came for.

The label Connecticut actually requires

Section 21a-62g requires every prepackaged cottage food product to carry an affixed label, printed in English, with all of the following. The Department of Consumer Protection's label checklist adds the detail:

1. The name and address of the cottage food operation. DCP wants the full address with city, state, and ZIP. The DCP cottage food manual says a street address, not a PO Box, so authorities can find you in a recall.
2. The common or usual name of the product. DCP accepts all caps or mixed case, as long as the name is visible.
3. The ingredient list, in descending order by weight. Sub-ingredients count. If your chocolate chips contain soy lecithin, that has to show up. DCP's own example: "soy sauce" is not acceptable, "soy sauce (wheat, soybeans, salt)" is.
4. Allergen declaration. The statute defers to federal labeling requirements. Federal law covers nine: milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans, and sesame. Sesame joined the list under the FASTER Act on January 1, 2023. You can declare them parenthetically inside the ingredient list or in a separate "Contains" statement. Tree nuts, fish, and shellfish must be named by species — "almonds," not "tree nuts."
5. Net weight or net volume, with the metric equivalent. DCP's checklist asks for the largest unit first: 18 ounces reads "1 lb 2 oz."
6. The Connecticut disclaimer, word for word.

The exact disclaimer wording

Made in a Cottage Food Operation that is not Subject to Routine Government Food Safety Inspection.

Section 21a-62g requires it "in at least ten-point type in a clear and conspicuous manner that provides contrast to the background label." Match the capitalization as written, including the lower-case "that is not." Handwritten labels are allowed if they are legible, in durable permanent ink, and at least as large as 10-point type.

Don't paraphrase it, don't shorten it to "made in a home kitchen," and don't set it in grey on a cream background. DCP reviews your label before it issues the license, and the statement is the first thing it checks.

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 Connecticut the cap is the near-term risk. $50,000 gross is reachable for a wedding cake business or a busy market stall, and § 21a-62d says the moment you cross it you "shall either obtain a food manufacturing establishment license or cease operations." There is no grace period written into the statute.

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 Connecticut

Connecticut uses an approved-list model, enforced through the license itself. Under § 21a-62d(c) a cottage food operation "may only produce those specific food products listed on its license." You name your products on the application, DCP reviews each one, and adding a product later means a new request. DCP publishes a list of common accepted products and says it is not exhaustive.

Allowed (DCP accepted products, March 2026):

Prohibited (DCP prohibited products):

The 2026 DCP farmers market notice puts it simply: no eggs, meat, poultry, dairy, salsas, tomato or spaghetti sauces, or focaccia with roasted vegetables.

If your product is on that prohibited list, cottage food law is not your path. You'll need a licensed commercial or shared-use kitchen, and 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. In Connecticut that is the hot sauce crowd, the buttercream cake decorators, and anyone making elderberry syrup.

Where you can sell

Section 21a-62d(b) says products "shall be sold directly to the consumer." It allows internet, mail, and phone orders provided the operator or a designee delivers in person to the customer within the state. DCP spells out the rest: products "may not be delivered by mail or by other third-party delivery services such as UPS or FedEx, or by mobile food ordering companies." Grocery stores, restaurants, long-term care facilities, group homes, day care facilities, and schools are all off limits, and so is selling to a wholesaler, broker, or distributor who would resell.

Interstate is a hard no everywhere, and the reason is jurisdictional rather than arbitrary: the moment a product crosses a state line it enters interstate commerce and FDA has authority over the whole operation that made it. Your state's cottage food exemption cannot exempt you from federal law. If you ship to one customer in another state, you have stepped outside the exemption for that shipment.

The cap, the permit, and the training

The cap was raised from $25,000 to $50,000 by P.A. 22-8 in 2022. DCP's older cottage food manual still says $25,000; the department's current FAQ, updated March 2026, says $50,000, and so does the statute. Keep records of every sale; DCP requires them.

Zoning is the local layer. You attest on the application that your town allows cottage food at your address, and you must keep written proof. The license has to be displayed wherever you sell. Nothing in the 2025 or 2026 sessions changed the cap, the food list, or the sales channels; a 2025 bill (SB 154) that would have opened farm stores and cafes to cottage food did not pass.

When you outgrow cottage food

Crossing $50,000 is not the only way out of cottage food. Any of these ends the exemption:

• You hit the sales cap.
• You want to sell wholesale or into grocery.
• You want to ship out of state, or ship at all.
• You want to make something on the prohibited list.
• You want to say "high protein" on the bag.

Whichever one gets you 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 chose.

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 have to 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 under the same section: if you're not an importer, have fewer than 10 full-time equivalent employees, and sell fewer than 10,000 units a year, you don't have to file anything at all.

And the exemption is void — filed or not — for any product carrying a nutrient content claim, a health claim, or other nutrition information, whether that appears on the label, in labeling, or in advertising. See FDA's labeling guidance for the full text.

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. That's against $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

Cottage food law changes most legislative sessions, and Connecticut doubled its cap in 2022 and keeps revising the product lists. Before you print labels, check the current rules with the agency directly:

• Connecticut DCP — Cottage Foods in Connecticut
• DCP — Cottage Food Label Checklist
• Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 21a-62b to 21a-62h: Chapter 417, Connecticut General Statutes

This page was last reviewed October 30, 2026. If you're reading it much later than that, verify the cap and the disclaimer wording before you rely on either.