Georgia cottage food label requirements

Georgia rewrote this law recently and the change was big. House Bill 398 was signed May 13, 2025 and took effect July 1, 2025. It eliminated the state cottage food license and its annual fee, created a new statutory disclosure statement, and opened sales to retail stores. If your guide mentions a cottage food license, a pre-operational inspection, or an application affidavit, it predates the rewrite.

The label Georgia actually requires

Here is the part that makes Georgia awkward right now, and you should know it before you print anything: the statute and the Department of Agriculture's published guidance currently specify two different disclosure statements. HB 398 wrote a new one into the code. The Georgia Department of Agriculture's cottage food rules, last amended effective March 16, 2021, still carry the old one, and GDA's own cottage food FAQ still publishes the old string. GDA told operators in its HB 398 FAQ that updated regulations were coming.

Under O.C.G.A. § 26-2-473, the statute in force, a cottage food label needs:

1. The business name, address, and telephone number of the cottage food operator — or, in place of that, an identification number issued by the Georgia Department of Agriculture on written request. The ID number is the address-privacy option, and it's free. Request it before you design a label if you'd rather not print your home address on a cookie bag.
2. The statutory disclosure statement, in at least 10-point font.

The older Department rule, Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. R. 40-7-19-.09, asks for more on a prepackaged product: business name and address, the common name of the product, ingredients in descending order by weight, net weight or net volume, allergen labeling per federal requirements, nutritional information if any nutritional claim is made, and the Department's version of the statement.

The exact disclaimer wording

This is the statutory statement from § 26-2-473, and it is what the current law requires:

This product was produced at a residential property that is exempt from state inspection. This product may contain allergens.

Minimum 10-point font. Sentence case, two sentences, both ending in periods.

This is the older statement from Rule 40-7-19-.09, which GDA still publishes on its cottage food FAQ page:

MADE IN A COTTAGE FOOD OPERATION THAT IS NOT SUBJECT TO STATE FOOD SAFETY INSPECTIONS.

The rule prints it in all capitals, and specifies Times New Roman or Arial, at least 10-point type, in a color that contrasts with the label background.

Until GDA finishes its rulemaking, the low-risk move is to carry both strings on the label. They don't contradict each other, both fit in 10-point, and doing so satisfies whichever one the person inspecting your table is working from. Email GDA at cottagefoodinfo@agr.georgia.gov and ask before a large print run. Do not paraphrase either one, don't shorten them to "made in a home kitchen," and don't drop the second sentence of the statutory version.

Even though the statute's own list is short, keep the ingredient statement, net weight, and allergen declaration on there. The Department rule still requires them, they cost you nothing, and you'll need them the day you leave cottage food anyway.

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.

Georgia has no cap, so trigger three will never fire here. Trigger four is the one to watch, because HB 398 opened the retail door. A grocery buyer or convenience store owner who agrees to shelve your jar will very often ask for a panel as a condition of carrying you, even though Georgia law does not make them. Rule 40-7-19-.09 also builds trigger one straight into state law: nutritional information is required "if any nutritional claim is made."

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 Georgia

Georgia uses an approved-list model built on a safety definition: cottage foods must be non-potentially hazardous, meaning shelf-stable without time or temperature control. GDA publishes a list of what qualifies.

Allowed, per GDA: loaf breads, rolls, and biscuits; cakes, pastries, and cookies; candies; fruit pies; jams, jellies, and preserves; dried fruits; dry herbs and herb blends; cereals, trail mixes, and granola; coated and uncoated nuts; vinegar and flavored vinegars; popcorn and popcorn products; and cotton candy.

Prohibited:

If your product is on that list, cottage food law is not your path in Georgia. Jerky, hot sauce with cooked vegetables, cheesecake, bottled drinks, and canned goods all need a licensed commercial or shared-use kitchen and a GDA food sales establishment license. 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

HB 398 is what added the retail channel, and it is the single biggest change in the 2025 rewrite. It's also where GDA's published guidance has not caught up: the Department's cottage food FAQ still answers the question "Why can't I sell my Cottage Foods to my favorite restaurant or grocery store?" with "Cottage Foods are not considered to be an approved source for use in a restaurant or retail store." That answer reflects the pre-HB 398 rules. Get GDA's position in writing before you sign a wholesale purchase order.

Restaurants carry an extra wrinkle on top of that. Georgia's "food sales establishment" is the GDA-regulated grocery and retail category; restaurants are "food service establishments" regulated by the Department of Public Health instead. HB 398's third-party vendor definition does reach a "retail store, grocery store, restaurant, or other similar store," so reading the restaurant door as open is defensible — but GDA's FAQ still says cottage food is not an approved source for a restaurant. Same advice: get it in writing first.

On local control, HB 398 bars counties and cities from prohibiting direct-to-consumer cottage food sales. A local government can prohibit sales through third-party vendors, but only by ordinance adopted after a public hearing with 15 to 45 days' notice. Separately, an individual farmers market can still require its vendors to hold a Food Sales Establishment License as a condition of renting a booth. That's the market's rule, not the state's, and GDA says so plainly.

Interstate is a hard no, and the reason is jurisdictional: the moment a product crosses a state line it enters interstate commerce and FDA has authority over the whole operation that made it. GDA states that cottage food sales are to the end consumer within Georgia. A state exemption cannot exempt you from federal law.

The cap, the license, and the training

Georgia is now one of the very few states with no cap on cottage food sales at all. GDA states it directly: the Department "does not have any limits on gross sales or the number of units that can be produced."

The training requirement deserves a note on where it comes from. HB 398 does not contain a food safety training mandate. GDA's cottage food page does, stating that operators "must complete an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) accredited food safety training program," and that a Food Handler certificate is acceptable. That's agency guidance sitting on top of a statute that's silent. Take the course — it's cheap and it settles the question — but know which document it comes from.

When you outgrow cottage food

There's no cap here, so nobody in Georgia ages out on revenue. You leave the program a different way. Any of these ends the exemption:

• You want to make jerky, cheesecake, hot sauce, or anything else on the prohibited list.
• A grocery chain says yes and asks for a panel on the jar.
• You want to ship to a customer in Alabama or Florida.
• You want to say "low sugar" on the bag.
• You list on Amazon.

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 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 in 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 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 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. 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 the University of Georgia extension lab.

Verify this yourself

Georgia is mid-transition. The statute changed on July 1, 2025 and the Department's rules and web pages have not fully caught up, so the disclosure wording in particular could move again once GDA finishes rulemaking. Check before you print:

• Georgia Department of Agriculture — Cottage Food
• Georgia Department of Agriculture — Cottage Food FAQ
• HB 398 (2025), full signed text — creates O.C.G.A. §§ 26-2-470 through 26-2-478
• Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. Subject 40-7-19, Cottage Food Regulations

Last reviewed August 4, 2026. If you're reading this much later, confirm the disclosure wording with GDA before you rely on it.