Florida Bakers Can Now Earn $250,000 a Year Without Leaving the Kitchen

Florida Bakers Can Now Earn $250,000 a Year Without Leaving the Kitchen

Florida's cottage food operators just got the most generous earning ceiling in the nation: a $250,000 annual revenue cap for direct sales, the highest of any state that restricts cottage food to direct-to-consumer transactions. For comparison, Texas recently raised its own cap to $150,000 under SB 541, with inflation indexing built in so that number grows over time. Georgia went furthest of all — HB 398, effective July 2025, eliminated the revenue cap entirely and opened the door for home producers to sell directly to retail stores and restaurants, not just individual customers.

These aren't incremental tweaks. Vermont tripled its cap from roughly $10,000 to $30,000 under Act 42, also effective July 2025. Michigan's HB 4122, which took effect March 24, 2026, doubled the state's cap from $25,000 to $50,000. The direction of travel is unmistakable: states are competing to attract and retain home food entrepreneurs, and the revenue limits that defined the old cottage food landscape are being rewritten faster than most bakers realize.

If you're in a state that hasn't moved, these numbers are the argument you bring to your state legislator's office.

Gobble's Take: Florida and Georgia just showed every other state what "supporting small business" actually looks like in practice.

Sources: MyCustomBakes · Butterbase

9 States Now Let You Sell Cheesecake from Your Home Kitchen

For years, the unwritten rule of cottage food was simple: if it needs a fridge, you can't sell it. Cream cheese frosting, cheesecakes, cream-filled pastries — all off-limits the moment you moved outside a licensed commercial kitchen. That line is now broken. As of 2026, at least nine states have legalized the production of TCS foods — items that require Time/Temperature Control for Safety — in home kitchens: California, Iowa, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, Wyoming, Texas, and Tennessee. Arizona also expanded its cottage food law to include certain TCS items, joining that group.

The shift isn't a free pass. States permitting TCS foods generally require specific food safety training and meet stricter labeling standards — you'll need to demonstrate you understand the temperature and handling rules that keep perishable products safe. But for home bakers who've been turning away orders for anything with a dairy filling, this is the regulatory opening they've been waiting for.

Check your state's specific training and labeling requirements before you start taking orders for that lemon curd tart.

Gobble's Take: The "cottage food means shelf-stable" era is over — but only if you do the food safety homework first.

Sources: MyCustomBakes · Butterbase

North Dakota Is Now One of the Only States Where You Can Legally Ship Cookies Across State Lines

Home bakers in most states face a hard wall when a customer from another state places an order: interstate commerce under cottage food law is generally prohibited, which means your business stops at the state border. North Dakota just moved that wall. Senate Bill 2386 makes North Dakota one of the only states in the country where cottage food products can legally be shipped across state lines — a distinction that transforms what had been a hyper-local operation into something with genuine national reach.

For home bakers eyeing customers beyond their county farmers' market, this is the model to watch. No other legal pathway currently available to most cottage food operators opens this kind of geographic expansion without stepping into commercial food manufacturing territory. Whether other states follow SB 2386's lead will say a lot about how seriously legislators take the economic potential of home food businesses.

If you're in North Dakota, your next customer could be in New York — legally.

Gobble's Take: North Dakota just handed its home bakers a 50-state storefront. Every other state's cottage food community should be asking their legislators why they haven't.

Source: MyCustomBakes

Your Label Is a Legal Document — and the Rules Just Changed in Several States

Home bakers often spend the most time on the recipe and the least time on the label — and that's exactly backwards from a compliance standpoint. Your label is the document that proves you're operating legally, and the baseline requirements apply in every state: a disclosure that the product was made in a home kitchen not subject to inspection, a complete ingredient list, allergen warnings, and net weight or volume. Some states layer on additional requirements; Texas, under SB 541, added address privacy protections via a registration number system.

Michigan's updated law (HB 4122, March 2026) added online sales and third-party delivery to what's permitted — which means labeling requirements now need to account for products traveling further from the kitchen, with less direct producer-to-consumer contact. Vermont's Act 42 (July 2025) added free training and annual registration requirements alongside the cap increase. Minnesota reduced registration fees to $30 and extended training validity to every three years, though those changes don't take effect until August 1, 2027. The rules are moving fast enough that what was compliant last year may not be compliant today.

Before you print another batch of labels, verify your state's current requirements at forrager.com/laws — that site tracks primary sources and is the most reliable place to confirm what's actually in effect.

Gobble's Take: That sticker on your jar is doing legal work — treat it with the same care you gave the recipe inside.

Sources: MyCustomBakes · Butterbase

In Case You Missed It

Yesterday's top stories:

• Kansas Requires No Permit, No Revenue Cap, and No Inspection — Just a Label
• New Jersey Requires a Permit — But It Exempts You From Retail Inspection Standards
• Perishable Foods and Inflation-Adjusted Caps: The Real Story of 2026's Cottage Food Shifts
• Texas Didn't Just Raise Its Revenue Cap — It Rewrote What Home Producers Can Sell