Florida Cottage Food Law Labels: Ingredients, Allergens, Disclaimer

Florida cottage food label requirements are set out in Section 500.80 of the Florida Statutes, and every prepackaged item you sell must carry seven pieces of information: your business name and address, the product name, the ingredients listed from heaviest to lightest by weight, the net weight or volume, allergen disclosures, nutritional data if you make any nutrition claim, and a specific disclaimer stating the food was made in an unregulated kitchen.¹ Miss any one of them and the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services can treat your product as misbranded.

The Seven Elements at a Glance

Business name and the physical address where the food is produced.
Product name, meaning the common name of the food (for example, “Banana Bread,” not a vague description).
Ingredients, listed in order from heaviest to lightest by weight.
Net weight for solid foods or net volume for liquids.
Allergen information for any of the major federal allergens present.
Nutritional information, but only if you put a nutrition or health claim on the label.
The cottage food disclaimer, word for word, in at least 10-point type that contrasts with the background.

The sections below cover the elements that cause the most trouble.

Listing Ingredients Correctly

Start with whatever your recipe uses the most of by weight and work down to the smallest quantity.¹ For a basic cookie, flour or butter usually comes first and vanilla extract usually comes last.

Compound ingredients cause most first-time mistakes. When you use a store-bought component that is itself made of several ingredients, federal rules require those sub-ingredients to appear on your label too. If your recipe calls for chocolate chips, you need to list what is inside those chips (cocoa butter, sugar, soy lecithin, and so on) either in parentheses after “chocolate chips” or folded into your master ingredient list.² Pull the packaging of every store-bought component you use and cross-reference its ingredient panel against yours.

Allergen Disclosures

Florida’s statute points to federal allergen standards, which recognize nine major allergens: milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans, and sesame.³ Sesame was added in January 2023 under the FASTER Act and is still frequently missed. If any of the nine appears anywhere in your product, including inside a compound ingredient, the label must call it out.¹

The standard approach is a “Contains:” line at the end of your ingredient list, for example “Contains: wheat, eggs, milk.” You can also declare allergens in parentheses within the ingredient list itself, such as “flour (wheat).” Either method satisfies federal requirements. Whichever you pick, someone with a food allergy has to be able to spot it quickly.

The Required Disclaimer, Word for Word

Every package of cottage food you sell must carry this exact statement:

“Made in a cottage food operation that is not subject to Florida’s food safety regulations.”

You cannot paraphrase it. The statute specifies this sentence verbatim and requires it to be printed in at least 10-point type (roughly the size of standard newspaper text) in a color that clearly contrasts with the label background.¹ Black text on a white background works. Light gray on cream does not. Changing even a few words can make the product misbranded under state law.

Net Weight and Nutritional Claims

The net weight or net volume must appear on the label of every package.¹ Solid foods like cookies or fudge are listed in ounces or grams. Liquids like flavored vinegar are listed in fluid volume. This is a short requirement that operators often skip past entirely because they are focused on the ingredient list and disclaimer.

Nutritional information (calories, fat, protein, and the rest) is required only if you make a nutritional or health claim on your label or marketing materials. A granola labeled “high protein” or “low fat” has to back that up with data meeting federal nutrition labeling standards. If you make no such claims, you can skip nutritional information entirely. The simplest path for most sellers is to leave nutrition claims off the label rather than take on the testing and compliance costs.

How the Label Has to Be Attached

The label must be physically affixed to every individual unit you sell. If you package six muffins in one bag, the bag itself needs the label. Handing a customer a separate information sheet or posting a sign at your booth does not satisfy the law. The statute uses the phrase “prepackaged with a label affixed,” which means the information travels with the product.¹

Beyond the 10-point minimum for the disclaimer, the statute does not set a font size for the other elements. Every piece of required information still needs to be legible without magnification under normal lighting. A printed adhesive label is the most reliable format. Handwritten labels smudge, fade, and invite legibility problems if an inspector ever shows up.

What Happens If the Label Is Wrong

Selling a cottage food product with an incomplete or incorrect label makes it misbranded under Florida law, which is a prohibited act under Chapter 500.⁴ A first misbranding violation is a second-degree misdemeanor, carrying up to 60 days in jail and a fine of up to $500. A second conviction becomes a first-degree misdemeanor with steeper penalties.⁵

The Department of Agriculture can also impose administrative fines and investigate your home kitchen when it receives a complaint.¹ Cottage food operations are exempt from routine inspections, but that exemption disappears the moment someone complains, and an inspector then has authority to enter and examine your premises. Get the label right before your first sale, and check it again every time you change a recipe or swap a supplier.

1
Florida Senate. Florida Code 500.80 – Cottage Food Operations
2
eCFR. 21 CFR 101.4 – Food; Designation of Ingredients
3
FDA. Food Allergies: What You Need to Know
4
Online Sunshine. Florida Statutes Chapter 500 – Florida Food Safety Act
5
Online Sunshine. Florida Code 775.083 – Fines