Ohio cottage food laws let you make and sell certain shelf-stable foods from your home kitchen without a license, an inspection, or a registration fee. There is no annual cap on how much you can earn. The trade-off is that the state limits what you can produce, how you label it, and where you can sell it. The rules live in Ohio Revised Code Chapter 3715 and Ohio Administrative Code Chapter 901:3-20.
What You Can Make
Ohio Administrative Code 901:3-20-04 lists twenty categories of approved cottage food products, and every one of them shares a single trait: the food does not need refrigeration to stay safe. The approved categories include:
- Bakery products such as cookies, breads, cakes, fruit pies, brownies, and unfilled baked donuts, as long as they don’t contain fillings that require refrigeration
- Jams, jellies, and fruit butters, including apple butter and similar shelf-stable spreads
- Candy, though fresh fruit dipped or covered in candy is not allowed
- Granola and granola bars, including bars dipped in candy, with any fruit commercially dried
- Flavored popcorn, kettle corn, popcorn balls, and caramel corn (raw popping corn is excluded)
- Dry herbs, herb blends, dry seasoning blends, and dry tea blends
The list is exhaustive, not illustrative. If a product doesn’t appear in one of the twenty categories, you can’t sell it as cottage food. Acidified foods like pickles, salsa, and fermented vegetables are out. So is anything containing meat, poultry, or dairy that needs refrigeration. Cheesecakes, custard pies, cream-filled pastries, and pumpkin pies all fall outside cottage food because they require temperature control for safety.
You also can’t use reduced oxygen packaging for any cottage food product. That rules out vacuum-sealed bags and modified atmosphere packaging.
Labeling Requirements
Every package you sell must carry a label that meets Ohio Revised Code 3715.023 and Ohio Administrative Code 901:3-20-02. The required elements are:
- Your cottage food operation’s business name and the physical address where you produce
- The common name of the product
- Ingredients listed in descending order of predominance by weight
- Net weight and volume
- The phrase “This product is home produced” in at least ten-point type
That last line matters. It tells the consumer your kitchen is not state-inspected, and the law requires it on every package.
Ohio’s labeling rule also incorporates the federal food labeling requirements of 21 CFR Part 101 by reference. For most cottage food producers, the practical effect is allergen disclosure. If your product contains milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, tree nuts, wheat, peanuts, or soybeans, you must identify those allergens on the label. A Nutrition Facts panel is not usually required, because the FDA’s small business exemption covers food businesses with total annual sales under $50,000.
Where You Can Sell
Every transaction has to happen within Ohio, but inside that boundary the state gives you room. You can sell directly to consumers at farmers markets, community events, county fairs, and from your home. Online sales are allowed as long as delivery stays inside the state.
Wholesale is also on the table. Properly labeled cottage food products can be sold to grocery stores and to restaurants licensed under Ohio Revised Code Chapter 3717, and those restaurants can use your products as ingredients in dishes they serve. If a local café wants to stock your granola or a restaurant wants to use your jam in a recipe, the law allows it.
Shipping to customers in other states is not permitted. Once a product crosses state lines, federal food safety regulations take over and the cottage food exemption no longer protects you.
Your Kitchen and Your Home
No license, no inspection, no registration fee. The Ohio Department of Agriculture oversees the program but does not require you to apply before you start selling.
The law does define what counts as a qualifying home. Your production kitchen must be in your primary residence. The home can contain only one stove or oven used for cooking, and a double oven counts as one unit. The equipment must be a standard residential model operated in an ordinary kitchen inside the home. You can’t set up a commercial oven in a garage, use a church kitchen, or produce in a detached building on your property.
Even without inspections, you’re expected to keep a clean and sanitary workspace. Basic food safety, including keeping the production area free from contamination sources like pet hair and dander, protects you if your products are ever sampled.
When to Move Up to a Home Bakery License
If you want to sell baked goods that need refrigeration, Ohio offers a separate Home Bakery category. A home bakery license covers items that cottage food rules prohibit, including cheesecakes, cream pies, custard pies, and pumpkin pies. The annual license fee is $10, and the ODA inspects your kitchen.
This is the usual next step for producers who outgrow the cottage food product list. The license only covers bakery products, though. It does not extend to meat, dairy beverages, or other categories that require a full commercial food processing license.
Sampling and Enforcement
Skipping the license does not mean skipping oversight. Under Ohio Revised Code 3715.02, the ODA can sample any cottage food product on the market. Sampling can be random or prompted by a consumer complaint. Testing looks for adulteration, meaning contamination or an unsafe product, and misbranding, meaning an inaccurate or incomplete label.
Adulterated or misbranded products can be pulled from sale. Repeatedly ignoring labeling requirements or selling products outside the approved list puts your ability to operate at risk. Sticking to the approved categories and labeling everything correctly is the reliable way to stay out of trouble.
Taxes and Business Setup
Cottage food income is taxable. Most producers operate as sole proprietors by default and report revenue and expenses on Schedule C of the federal return. Net profit above $400 in a year also triggers self-employment tax, which covers Social Security and Medicare.
Because you use your kitchen for production, you can deduct a portion of your housing expenses, including utilities, insurance, and maintenance, based on the percentage of your home used for the business. The IRS also offers a simplified home office method of $5 per square foot of business space, up to 300 square feet.
Many producers eventually form an LLC to separate personal assets from business liability. Filing a domestic LLC in Ohio costs $99 through the Secretary of State. An LLC doesn’t change your tax obligations as a sole proprietor unless you elect different treatment, but it puts a legal barrier between your personal finances and claims against the business. Product liability insurance is another layer worth considering, with basic policies for small food businesses starting around $300 per year.
Whether you owe sales tax depends on your product mix. Ohio generally exempts food sold for off-premises consumption, but certain items like candy may be taxable. The Ohio Department of Taxation can confirm whether what you sell triggers a sales tax collection obligation and whether you need a vendor’s license.