Cottage food exemption

Definition

A home kitchen selling direct to consumers under a sales cap, with no food permit and no wholesale.

Why It Matters

This is the competitor a bakery's price list is set against, and it is invisible in any market study built from permitted businesses. Florida exempts a cottage food operation from the state food permit up to $250,000 of annual cottage food sales, bars it from selling wholesale, and requires every package to say it was made in an operation not subject to the state's food safety rules. The exemption ends where a bakery's wholesale accounts begin, so that revenue is the part no home kitchen can take. Ask which of the bakery's lines a cottage operation could legally serve.