Nebraska cottage food label requirements

Legislative Bill 262, effective July 19, 2024, flipped the model: the statute now names what you can't make, and some refrigerated foods are in.

The label Nebraska actually requires

Neb. Rev. Stat. § 81-2,280(6): "The producer shall label the food so that the name and address of the producer is provided to the consumer on the package or container label." The statutory list:

1. Your name and address. A specific mailing address, not a city or PO box, per the Nebraska Department of Agriculture (NDA).
2. Ingredients in descending order by weight, if the food needs refrigeration (TCS food).

The statute doesn't require a product name, allergens, or net weight. All become required when you leave cottage food, so add them now:

• The common name of the product.
• The ingredient list, in descending order by weight. Sub-ingredients count. If your chocolate chips contain soy lecithin, that has to show up.
• Allergen declaration. 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 — "pecans," not "tree nuts."
• Net weight.

The exact disclaimer wording

Nebraska's required statement is a consumer notification, not a label element. Section 81-2,280(5)(a) says the producer "shall inform the consumer by a clearly visible notification that the food":

(i) Was prepared in a kitchen that is not subject to regulation and inspection by a regulatory authority; and
(ii) May contain allergens.

NDA's sign version:

This food was prepared in a kitchen that is not subject to regulation and inspection by the regulatory authority and may contain allergens.

Under § 81-2,280(5)(b) and (c) it goes "at the sale location" for public events, and for pickup or delivery sales "at the producer's private home, on the producer's website, if such website exists, and in any print, radio, television, or Internet advertisement."

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.

With no cap, Nebraska's trigger is channel. NDA: "a third party, such as a coffee shop, may not sell cottage food."

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 Nebraska

Since LB 262, Nebraska uses an exclusion model: § 81-2,280(2) allows any food that "is not adulterated" and is not a listed time/temperature control for safety food.

Allowed, per NDA's Q&A: baked goods, candy, jams, granola, and TCS foods such as cheesecake, cooked-custard ice cream, pudding, cheese, and refrigerated pesto.

Prohibited under § 81-2,280(2):

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 with an NDA food establishment permit, 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.

Where you can sell

Under § 81-2,280(7), shelf-stable food may go by "United States mail or a commercial mail delivery service"; TCS food "shall be delivered only by the producer to the consumer in person," at safe temperature, and "not be transported for longer than two hours."

Sales must be direct: § 81-2,245.01(7) covers food "prepared for sale directly to the consumer" at public events or "for pick up at or delivery from such private home."

The statute draws no in-state line on mail; Nebraska Extension's FAQ says "to other addresses in Nebraska" while its home page allows mail "to states where it is legal to mail cottage foods."

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

Registration (§ 81-2,280(4)) takes contact details, course and completion date, and well-test proof. The farmers-market exception covers shelf-stable food at a farmers market, nothing else. Section 81-2,280(8) supersedes "any conflicting local ordinance" on food safety and handling.

When you outgrow cottage food

Nebraska has no cap, so the exits are product and channel:

• A coffee shop, grocery, or caterer wants your product.
• You want to make bone broth, BBQ sauce, or kombucha.
• 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 Nebraska has moved three times since 2019: LB 304 (2019), LB 262 (2024), and LB 245 (2025). Check the current rules with the agency directly:

• Nebraska Department of Agriculture — Cottage Food Registration
• Neb. Rev. Stat. § 81-2,280: Producer of food at a private home, Nebraska Legislature
• Nebraska Extension — Cottage Food Law

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