Kansas cottage food law (2026): what you can sell and label

What Kansas actually decides

The Kansas exemption is defined by who buys, not by how much you sell. Direct-to-consumer sales need no licence, registration, fee or number, and there is no cap. There is also no required home kitchen sentence on the label, which sets Kansas apart from almost every other state on this list.

The moment you sell to another business for use, resale or distribution, the exemption ends and you need a Food Processing licence, which starts with an initial inspection. An exempt person may apply for a licence voluntarily if that is where the business is heading.

The product boundary runs through temperature control and through a category the regulations call specialized processing. Cheesecake, cream-filled cupcakes and donuts, cream or meringue pies, custards, pumpkin pie and quiche are out. So are cream cheese frostings and fillings at 65 percent sugar or less, which is a specific enough threshold to be worth measuring rather than guessing.

Sanitation is written into the regulation even without inspection. Food preparation areas are protected from rain, dust and pests, and food contact surfaces are cleaned, rinsed and sanitized, either by immersion in 50 to 100 parts per million chlorine bleach for ten seconds followed by air drying, or with an equivalent sanitizer.

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 Kansas Department of Agriculture directly. Everything else on this page was read off an official source on September 13, 2026. If one of those points decides your case, ask them.

What you can sell in Kansas

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 goods made in a home kitchen: cookies, breads, cakes, cinnamon rolls, fruit pies, fruit cobbler
• Chocolate candies and dipped products needing no refrigeration, such as chocolate-covered pretzels, strawberries and nuts
• Dough: refrigerated, frozen or freeze-dried cookie dough, and pizza dough
• Dry baking mixes such as cookie mix and brownie mix
• Icing and frosting, cream cheese based included, at more than 65 percent sugar by weight
• Grain products: home-ground flour, cornmeal, popcorn, intact grain, dehydrated sourdough starter
• Candy and fudge, shelf-stable freeze-dried candy, fruit leathers, and dry snacks seasoned with oil and spices
• Fruit jams and jellies, apple butter, soda-based jelly, and naturally high-acid canned fruit such as applesauce and pie filling
• Nuts and nut butters, spices and herbs, loose leaf or bagged tea, homemade dried pasta, vanilla extract
• Packaged high-acid or formulated-acid juice and cider
• Herb-flavoured or infused vinegar

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.

• Anything needing time and temperature control: cheesecake, cream-filled cupcakes or donuts, cream cheese frostings or fillings at 65 percent sugar or less, cream or meringue pies, custards, pumpkin pie, quiche
• Anything caught by the "specialized processing" definition: curing, smoking for preservation, canning other than fruit jams, jellies and preserves, reduced-oxygen packaging, sprouting, drying other than herbs and whole fruit or vegetables, juice processing and packaging, fermenting, cultured dairy, non-continuous cooking
• Acidified shelf-stable foods: pickles, pickled eggs, hot sauces, lemon curd, canned tomatoes
• Fermented foods: sauerkraut, kimchi, kombucha, naturally fermented pickles
• Low-acid shelf-stable canned foods: vegetables, broth, pumpkin pie filling, vegetable juice, shelf-stable cold brew, meats, and cake or bread baked in a jar
• Sprouted grains, fresh or dried
• Anything sold to another business for resale, including consignment and a craft mall where you leave the product, which needs a Kansas Department of Agriculture licence
• Pet food and treats, which need a separate Kansas commercial feed licence

Where you are allowed to sell it

The researched record lists direct sales, farmers markets, online orders, delivery, in-state shipping, interstate shipping.

One channel being open does not open the rest. Shipping, delivery and wholesale each turn on the product and where it is going, so check the route you actually plan to use.

Paperwork, training and inspections

The researched record does not list a general permit for this tier. No licence, registration, fee or number exists for direct-to-consumer sales, and no home kitchen sentence is required. The exemption ends the moment you sell to another business for use, resale or distribution, which needs a Food Processing licence, and a licence of either kind starts with an initial inspection. An exempt person may apply for a licence voluntarily. A separate exemption covers operating a food establishment for fewer than seven days in a calendar year, which is how otherwise licensable baked goods containing hazardous dairy or egg can be sold on six or fewer days. Selling across state lines is contemplated and carries federal duties, including free FDA facility registration renewed every two years, rather than a blessing from the department.

No training is recorded as universally required. No training appears in the statute, in the sanitation regulation or in either K-State publication, and no Kansas source states the absence in terms.

Only on a complaint is what the record says about inspections. Confirm what that means for your product and your local authority, because the two can differ.

Kitchen rules people miss

None of these fit on a label, which is exactly why they get skipped. Read them before the first batch, not after.

• Food preparation areas are protected from rain, dust and pests, and food and utensils are protected from contamination.
• Food contact surfaces are cleaned, rinsed and sanitized, either by immersion in 50 to 100 parts per million chlorine bleach for ten seconds then air drying, or with a sanitizer labelled for food contact, in sinks or food-grade tubs big enough to immerse the largest item.
• Animals are not permitted in food preparation areas.
• Water must be potable. On a private well or spring you test at least once a year for nitrates under 20 milligrams per kilogram and zero total and faecal coliforms, and keep the current result available on request. A septic system needs KDHE or county sanitarian approval.
• No bare-hand contact with ready-to-eat food, a spelled-out handwashing procedure, and nobody with vomiting, diarrhoea, jaundice, a sore throat with fever, an open lesion on hands, wrists or arms, or norovirus, hepatitis A, shigella, STEC or S. typhi works with food.

Start this weekend

In this order, so the label is the last thing you check and not the first thing you guess.

• Keep sales direct to the person eating the food. Selling to a business needs a licence and an inspection.
• Check your cream cheese frosting against the 65 percent sugar threshold rather than assuming.
• Follow the sanitizing method in the regulation: 50 to 100 ppm chlorine for ten seconds, then air dry.
• Do not add a home kitchen disclaimer out of habit. Kansas does not require one.
• Apply for a Food Processing licence voluntarily if wholesale is where you are heading.