Florida cottage food label requirements

Florida is one of the easier states to start in. No permit, no license, no registration, no routine inspection, and a cap high enough that most people will hit a different limit first. FDACS can inspect your premises if it receives a complaint, under § 500.80(7), but nobody is coming by on a schedule. The label is where the actual obligations live.

The label Florida actually requires

Section 500.80(3) says a cottage food operation "may only sell cottage food products which are prepackaged with a label affixed" containing all of the following:

1. The name and address of the cottage food operation. Your physical address. Florida offers no address-privacy substitute, unlike Texas — if putting a home address on a package bothers you, sort that out with a Florida attorney before you print.
2. The name of the cottage food product.
3. The ingredients, in descending order of predominance by weight. Sub-ingredients count. If your chocolate chips contain soy lecithin, it goes on the label.
4. The net weight or net volume.
5. Allergen information as specified by federal labeling requirements. That's nine allergens: milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans, and sesame. Sesame was added by the FASTER Act effective January 1, 2023. Declare them parenthetically in the ingredient list or in a separate "Contains" statement. Tree nuts must be named by species — "pecans," not "tree nuts."
6. Nutritional information, if any nutritional claim is made. More on this below, because it's the whole ballgame.
7. The Florida disclaimer, word for word.

The exact disclaimer wording

Made in a cottage food operation that is not subject to Florida's food safety regulations.

The statute requires it "printed in at least 10-point type in a color that provides a clear contrast to the background of the label." Sentence case, as written, ending in a period. Don't paraphrase it, don't set it in 6-point grey on a cream background, and don't shorten it to "made in a home kitchen." That's a different state's wording.

Florida wrote the trigger into its own statute

Look again at element six: "If any nutritional claim is made, appropriate nutritional information as specified by federal labeling requirements."

The moment your package says "low sugar," "high protein," "keto," or "sugar free," the same statute that exempts you from permitting turns around and requires the nutrition information backing the claim up. There is no cottage food carve-out for claims. This is the most common way a Florida maker who genuinely didn't need a panel ends up needing one.

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.

Because Florida's cap is high and its permitting is nonexistent, triggers one, four, and five are what actually bite here — not the cap. Trigger five is especially common because Florida cottage food attracts people selling to a national audience online: Amazon requires images showing the panel, ingredient list, allergen declarations, manufacturer info, and net quantity regardless of what § 500.80 says.

Trigger one reaches further than people expect. Under 21 CFR 101.9(j)(18), the federal small business 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.

What you can and can't make in Florida

Florida allows any food that is not time or temperature controlled for safety and not a potentially hazardous food, per the definition in Fla. Stat. § 500.03. In practice FDACS works from a list.

Allowed, per FDACS and UF/IFAS guidance: loaf breads, rolls, and biscuits; cakes, cookies, pastries, and fruit pies; candies and confections; cereals, granola, and trail mixes; coated and uncoated nuts and nut butters; dried herbs and seasonings; fruit jams, jellies, and preserves; homemade dry pasta; honey; popcorn and popcorn balls; roasted coffee beans; and flavored vinegars.

Prohibited:

If your product is on that list, cottage food law isn't your path in Florida. You'll need a licensed commercial or shared-use kitchen and an FDACS food permit under § 500.12, and once you're operating out of one you're a food manufacturer under federal law — full labeling, including a Nutrition Facts panel, unless you qualify for the small business exemption below.

Where you can sell

Florida is more generous than most states on shipping. Section 500.80(2) lets you sell and accept payment over the internet or by mail order, and lets products be "delivered in person directly to the consumer, to a specific event venue, or by United States Postal Service or commercial mail delivery service." You don't have to hand-deliver, which is a real advantage over Texas.

The hard limit in the statute is no wholesale, stated flatly in the same subsection. Consignment is out too, but that one comes from agency guidance rather than § 500.80, which never uses the word: FDACS says "cottage food products cannot be sold on consignment. The sale must be person-to-person," and UF/IFAS FS425 says products may not be "sold, offered for sale, or delivered for consignment or wholesale." Same practical answer, different source. You may also only sell products you store on your own premises.

Shipping out of state surprises people, because Florida allows it. Texas limits cottage food sales to "in this state" and California defines its sales as transactions "within the state." Section 500.80 has no equivalent boundary — the drafters simply didn't write one. UF/IFAS Extension reads it the same way and says so directly: products "may be delivered in person directly to the consumer, to a specific event venue, or shipped across state lines by the United States Postal Service or commercial mail delivery service."

There is a federal wrinkle worth understanding before you build a business on it. Your cottage food exemption is a state exemption from state permitting. It says nothing about FDA, and a product that crosses a state line is in interstate commerce, where federal food law reaches. That is not a Florida prohibition, though plenty of guides state it as one. Florida permits the shipment and the state's own extension service says so. But if out-of-state shipping is going to be a real channel rather than the occasional box to a cousin, it's worth an hour with a food attorney, because § 500.80 is not the statute that answers that question.

The cap, the permit, and the paperwork

Two things people miss. First, § 500.80 requires you to "provide the department, upon request, with written documentation to verify the operation's annual gross sales." Keep clean books — the exemption is conditional on staying under $250,000 and FDACS can ask you to prove it.

Second, Florida preempts local interference: "A local law, ordinance, or regulation may not prohibit a cottage food operation or regulate the preparation, processing, storage, or sale of cottage food products." A city cannot invent a cottage food permit. It can still enforce ordinary ordinances on traffic, parking, noise, and signage, so a home operation with a line down the sidewalk can still hear from code enforcement.

When you outgrow cottage food

$250,000 is a high ceiling, and most Florida makers hit a different wall first. Any of these ends the exemption:

• You cross $250,000 in gross annual sales.
• A shop wants to stock you — wholesale and consignment are both out.
• You want to make sauce, jerky, cheesecake, or anything canned.
• You want to say "low sugar" on the bag.
• You list on Amazon.

Whichever comes first, the day after it happens you're a food manufacturer with an FDACS food permit, labeling under 21 CFR 101.9. Your panel's serving size comes from the RACC table in 21 CFR 101.12, not from you, and 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

Florida last moved this law in 2021, when the cap went from $50,000 to $250,000. It could move again. Check before you print:

• FDACS — Cottage Foods
• Fla. Stat. § 500.80, full text
• UF/IFAS Extension, "Cottage Food in Florida" (FS425), revised July 2026

Last reviewed August 4, 2026. If you're reading this much later, confirm the cap and the disclaimer wording before you rely on either.