Confita
What Arkansas actually decides
The Arkansas Food Freedom Act takes the whole apparatus away. No permit, licence or registration, no cap, no training requirement, and section 20-57-507(b) stops counties and municipalities from regulating the production or sale of homemade food. The state also sets no home kitchen hygiene rules: no pets rule, no separate storage, no water test.
What replaces all of that is a technical definition. A homemade non-TCS food finishes at a pH of 4.6 or less and a water activity of 0.85 or less. Biscuits, breads, cakes, cookies, cupcakes, doughnuts, pastries, fruit-filled pies, pretzels and quick breads sit inside it. Candy and confections qualify on the water activity number alone. If you are unsure where your product lands, that pair of numbers is the question to answer, not whether it appears on a list.
The channel list is wide, including shipping across state lines and wholesale, which most states close off. The exclusions are the predictable ones: anything needing time or temperature control, food of animal origin whether raw or cooked, and dairy.
The one optional piece of paper is a Department of Agriculture Business ID Number. It replaces your name, address and telephone number on the label, which is the only reason to want it.
One caveat on the sourcing. The agency's own page did not spell out the permit or registration or the training requirement, so those came from the statute and secondary sources rather than from Arkansas Department of Health directly. Everything else on this page was read off an official source on September 11, 2026. If one of those points decides your case, ask them.
The short version
What you can sell in Arkansas
Straight from the official record. Read these as categories rather than a menu, because one recipe can cross the line on its own: a filling that needs refrigeration, a pH that needs testing, or a process that needs an authority to sign it off.
- Baked foods that need no refrigeration and finish at a pH of 4.6 or less and a water activity of 0.85 or less: biscuits, biscotti, breads, cakes, cookies, cupcakes, doughnuts, pastries, fruit-filled pies, pretzels, quick breads
- Candy and confections finishing at a water activity of 0.85 or less: bon bons, brittle, caramels, chocolate, chocolate-covered non-TCS foods, fudge, hard candy, popcorn balls
- Jams, jellies, preserves, fruit butters and syrups, including conserves, apple butter, fruit syrup, sorghum and marmalades
- Dried, dehydrated and roasted products: baking mixes, dried fruit, fruit leathers, granola, cereals and trail mixes, dried herbs, freeze-dried fruit and vegetables, nut mixes, popcorn, potato chips, seasonings, dry soup mixes, dry tea
- Icings, fillings, frostings, sugar art and toppings: buttercream, gumpaste, fondant, glaze, royal icing, cake toppers, sugar flowers, edible images printed on icing or wafer sheets
- Pickled, acid and acidified foods canned to an equilibrium pH of 4.6 or less: acidified tomatoes, tomato juice and sauce, salsa, pickled asparagus, beets, carrots, beans, green tomatoes, okra, relish, watermelon rinds, cucumbers
- Condiments at an equilibrium pH of 4.6 or less: barbeque sauce, ketchup, fruit salsas, meatless spaghetti sauce, pepper sauce, nut-free fruit chutney, taco sauce, simple syrups
- Packaged ready-to-consume teas, coffee and soft drinks, lemonade and fruit ades, and heat-treated canned high-acid fruit juices
- Frozen products finishing at a pH of 4.6 or less or a water activity of 0.85 or less, such as fruit popsicles, sorbet and fruit-based freezer jams
- Hemp foods made with hulled hemp seeds, hemp seed protein powder or hemp seed oil, which are the only hemp products allowed in food
- Maple syrup, sorghum and honey from your own production, including creamed honey and honey flavoured with dry non-TCS ingredients such as ground cinnamon
- Whole, uncut fresh fruits and vegetables, and microgreens cut once at harvest
What is outside the rule
If your product is on this list, the answer is not "ask nicely". It is a different licence, a different kitchen, or both.
- Any food that needs time or temperature control for safety: cream and custard pies, cheesecakes, deli salads, casseroles, tres leches, pizza
- Food of animal origin, raw or cooked: meat, poultry, seafood, wild game
- Dairy, including milk, cheese, butter and sour cream. The Health Department points at Act 698 of 2025, the separate raw milk route, instead
- Food of plant origin that is heat treated, except the items the guide’s Appendix A lists
- Raw seed sprouts, cut leafy greens, cut or sliced fresh tomatoes, cut or sliced melons, and garlic-in-oil mixtures
- Canned low-acid foods, and smoked, cured or dried meats, which both need a Health Department permit and a variance
- Anything finishing above a pH of 4.6 or a water activity of 0.85, and anything flavoured with alcohol, except candy under 5 percent alcohol by volume
- Non-baked items made with raw or pasteurized egg, such as raw cookie dough, egg noodles, soft meringue, tiramisu and mousse, plus frozen doughs, nut butters, and cake or bread baked in a jar
