Wisconsin cottage food label requirements

The unlicensed list got narrower in 2024: the Court of Appeals reversed a circuit-court order that had extended the home-baker ruling to all shelf-stable foods, and the Supreme Court declined review. Candy, granola, and roasted coffee need a license again.

The label Wisconsin actually requires

Wisconsin has two home-food paths with different label rules.

Home-baked goods (court-order path). DATCP's home-baker page and fact sheet list no label elements and no disclaimer. These elements cover you if a market manager asks:

1. Your name and address.
2. The common name of the product.
3. The ingredient list, in descending order by weight. Sub-ingredients count. If your chocolate chips contain soy lecithin, that has to show up.
4. 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."
5. Net weight.

Home-canned goods (Pickle Bill path). DATCP's "Selling Home-Canned Foods" handout, implementing § 97.29(2)(b)2, says product labels must include:

1. The name and address of the person who did the canning.
2. The date of canning.
3. All ingredients in descending order of prominence, including the common name of any of the nine major allergens.
4. The Wisconsin canned-goods disclaimer, word for word.

The exact disclaimer wording

For home-canned goods, on the label:

This product was made in a private home not subject to state licensing or inspection.

And on a sign at the point of sale:

These canned goods are homemade and not subject to state inspection.

Both are from DATCP's handout on § 97.29(2)(b)2. Home-baked goods have no required disclaimer.

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.

Since the 2024 reversal, fudge, granola, dried herbs, and coffee all need a licensed facility, which means labeling as a manufacturer.

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 Wisconsin

Wisconsin uses an approved-list model with two short lists.

Allowed without a license:

License required, per DATCP:

If your product needs a license, cottage food law is not your path. You'll need a licensed commercial or shared-use kitchen under ATCP 70 or ATCP 75, 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

The court orders cover a home baker who "sells baked goods directly to consumers." They and DATCP's page say nothing about online sales or shipping, and "Businesses wholesaling baked goods must be licensed."

The Pickle Bill is tighter. DATCP's not-permitted list: sales out of your home, wholesale, consignment, "via the internet or out of state," and mixing exempt canned goods with licensed foods at one table.

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

DATCP's fact sheet warns: "Ongoing litigation may affect the applicability of this information." The baked-goods allowance rests on a court order, not a statute; bills to write one (AB 748 and SB 739, 2025–26) had not become law when this page was reviewed.

When you outgrow cottage food

Wisconsin's exits come early. Any of these ends the exemption:

• You cross $5,000 in canned-goods sales.
• You want to make anything that isn't baked or acid-canned.
• A shop wants to stock you.
• 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 Wisconsin has moved through the courts instead: a 2017 ruling for bakers, a 2022 extension to all shelf-stable foods, and the November 19, 2024 reversal in 2024 WI App 69, which the Supreme Court declined to review in April 2025. Check with the agency directly:

• DATCP — Home Licenses and Homemade Baked Goods
• DATCP — Selling Home-Canned Foods (PDF)
• Wisconsin Court of Appeals, 2024 WI App 69, Wisconsin Cottage Food Association v. DATCP (PDF)

This page was last reviewed October 30, 2026. If you're reading it much later than that, verify whether a cottage food statute has passed before you rely on any of this.