Mississippi cottage food label requirements

That cap is the lowest in the Southeast, and it has sat there since July 1, 2020, when House Bill 326 raised it from $20,000. Bills to raise it in 2025 (SB 2265) and 2026 (HB 910, HB 1108, SB 2283, SB 2398) all died in committee. Mississippi also keeps the tightest sales rules in the region: in person, in state, no shipping.

The label Mississippi actually requires

Section 75-29-951 requires every cottage food product to be prepackaged with a label that includes all of the following. Mississippi State University Extension's labeling guide (Publication 3545) reproduces the same seven components:

1. The name and address of the cottage food operation. Your home address; Mississippi offers no ID-number substitute.
2. The name of the cottage food product.
3. The ingredient list, in descending order by weight. Sub-ingredients count.
4. Allergen information as specified by federal labeling requirements. 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.
5. The net weight or net volume of the product.
6. Nutritional information, if any nutritional claim is made. This is the trigger written into the state statute.
7. The Mississippi disclaimer, word for word.

The exact disclaimer wording

Made in a cottage food operation that is not subject to Mississippi'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 or shorten it to "made in a home kitchen." The wording is nearly identical to Florida's; change the state name.

Mississippi 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." MSU Extension spells out what counts: "free, low, reduced, fewer, high, less, more, lean, extra lean, good source, or light." Say "low sugar" on a jar of preserves and the statute that exempts you from permitting now requires the nutrition information behind the claim.

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 Mississippi, trigger three is the one with a date on it. $35,000 in gross sales is roughly $670 a week. And because the state bans online sales, retail, wholesale, and shipping, anyone who wants to grow past a market table has to leave cottage food to do it.

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 Mississippi

Mississippi uses an approved-list model. The statute limits cottage food to non-potentially hazardous foods, and the Mississippi State Department of Health works from a specific list. If it isn't on the list, ask MSDH before you make it.

Allowed, per MSDH's list as published by MSU Extension (Publication 3286): baked goods without cream, custard, or meat fillings; fruit pies; candy; chocolate-covered non-perishable foods; dried fruit, pasta, spices, and rubs; dry baking mixes; granola and trail mixes; jams, jellies, and preserves meeting 21 CFR 150; mustard; nut mixes; popcorn; vinegar; waffle cones; and acidified foods such as pickles meeting the 21 CFR 114 definition.

Prohibited:

If your product is on that list, cottage food law is not your path in Mississippi. Cheesecake and anything you'd keep in the fridge needs an MSDH-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

HB 326 (2020) allowed internet advertising, and MSU Extension confirms that using "the Internet and social media ... for marketing and advertising products only is allowed." Taking the order and payment online is not: "Selling products online, in retail or wholesale stores, or shipping through postal services is prohibited." Products can be sold only from your home or at a farmers market, fair, or similar setting, and only "in the state of Mississippi directly from the producer to the final customer."

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 exemption is conditional on the cap. Stay at or under $35,000 in gross annual sales and you're exempt from MSDH permitting; cross it and you need a permit and an inspected kitchen. MSU Extension recommends keeping sales records MSDH could review after a complaint.

When you outgrow cottage food

In Mississippi the channel rules often bite before the cap. Any of these ends the exemption:

• You cross $35,000 in gross annual sales.
• You want to take orders on your website or ship a box.
• You want to make cheesecake, salsa, or anything refrigerated.
• You want to say "low sugar" on the jar.

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

Mississippi last moved this law in 2020 (HB 326), and the legislature has looked at the cap every year since. Before you print labels, check the current rules with the agency directly:

• MSDH — Food Facilities and Permits, which hosts the Cottage Food Operation Q&A
• MSU Extension — Mississippi Cottage Food Operations: Regulations and Guidance (P3286) and Labeling Mississippi Cottage Food Products (P3545)
• Miss. Code Ann. § 75-29-951: HB 326 (2020), text as signed, Mississippi Legislature

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.