Louisiana cottage food label requirements

That cap is new. Act 801 of the 2026 Regular Session (House Bill 403) raised it from $30,000, effective August 1, 2026. Louisiana never says "cottage food"; the statute covers "low-risk foods" prepared in the home, as an exemption from the state Sanitary Code.

The label Louisiana actually requires

Section 40:4.9(D)(1)(a) says anyone who prepares low-risk foods in the home for sale "shall affix to any such food offered for sale a label which clearly indicates that the food was not produced in a licensed or regulated facility." That is the entire state labeling requirement. No name-and-address element, no ingredient element, no type size.

That is the thinnest label statute in the South, and it's a trap: a bag with nothing but the disclaimer is legal under 40:4.9 and useless to a customer with a peanut allergy. Here is what to print:

1. The Louisiana disclaimer. Required by the statute. Wording below.
2. Your name and address. Not required by 40:4.9, but every buyer expects it.
3. The product name.
4. The ingredient list, in descending order by weight. Sub-ingredients count.
5. Allergen declaration. Federal law covers nine: milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans, and sesame, the last added by the FASTER Act on January 1, 2023. Declare them in the ingredient list or in a "Contains" statement, and name tree nuts, fish, and shellfish by species.
6. Net weight. Federal packaged-food rules expect it.

Print them now; federal rules demand them the day you outgrow the exemption.

The exact disclaimer wording

Louisiana prescribes the substance, not the string: there is no verbatim statement in the statute and no type-size minimum. The safest wording is the statute's own language:

This food was not produced in a licensed or regulated facility.

Quoting the law is the easiest way to "clearly indicate" the fact. Make it legible and put it on a main panel; don't borrow another state's "cottage food operation" wording.

One exemption: under 40:4.9(D)(1)(b), raw, unfiltered honey doesn't need the statement.

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 Louisiana, trigger one is the near-term risk, because the state statute says nothing about claims and people assume that means they're free to make them. They aren't. A label with "sugar free" on it and no panel is a federal problem the state exemption can't fix.

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 Louisiana

Louisiana uses an approved-list model. Section 40:4.9(E) says "low-risk foods" shall include all of the following, "none of which shall consist of any animal muscle protein or fish protein":

Allowed:

Custard and cream-filled baked goods are allowed, with conditions in 40:4.9(A)(2)(d) through (h): pasteurized milk only, filling cooked to at least 145°F for 30 minutes, then chilled to 45°F or below.

Prohibited:

If your product is on the prohibited side, cottage food law is not your path in Louisiana. Boudin and meat pie makers need an LDH-permitted commercial kitchen, 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

The only channel rule in 40:4.9 is subsection (C): nobody who prepares "breads, cakes, cookies, or pies in the home for sale to the public" may sell them "to any retail business or individual for resale." For everything else on the low-risk list, the statute doesn't address resale, online orders, shipping, or geography at all.

Silence is not permission to build a national mail-order business. Your Louisiana exemption is a state exemption from the state Sanitary Code. It cannot exempt you from federal law, and the moment a product crosses a state line it enters interstate commerce and FDA has authority over the whole operation that made it; for that shipment you are outside the exemption.

The cap, the permit, and the training

Two conditions carry real weight. Under 40:4.9(D)(2), you may not sell unless you are "registered to collect any local sales and use taxes," evidenced by a current parish sales tax certificate. And under 40:4.9(A)(1)(b), the exemption "shall not apply to any preparer of breads, cakes, cookies, or pies who employs any individual to assist in the preparation." The statute cuts off at gross sales that "equal" $100,000 "or more," so the exemption ends at the dollar, not after it.

When you outgrow cottage food

$100,000 is a comfortable ceiling for most home bakers. Any of these ends the exemption first:

• A shop wants to stock your cookies or king cakes — resale of baked goods is out.
• You want to make boudin, meat pies, or anything with seafood.
• You want to say "low sugar" on the jar.
• You list on Amazon.

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

Louisiana has moved this law twice in five years (Act 357 of 2022, Act 801 of 2026), and at review the legislature's online copy of R.S. 40:4.9 still showed $30,000, so read the Act itself. Before you print labels, check the current rules directly:

• Louisiana Department of Health — Food Safety
• La. R.S. 40:4.9: Louisiana State Legislature, RS 40:4.9
• Act 801 of 2026 (HB 403), as signed (PDF)

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