Rules for New Brunswick · Last updated September 9, 2026

New Brunswick home-based food rules: what to check before selling

New Brunswick is the one province where both languages belong on the label, because the federal single-language shortcut usually does not apply here.

Make a New Brunswick label

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Key takeaways

No licence to sell home baking at a public market, if it needs no refrigeration.
Written for markets only. Selling from your door or by delivery falls outside it.
Both official languages belong on the label in most of the province.

What New Brunswick actually decides

You can bake bread, cookies, cakes, muffins, fruit pies and tarts at home and sell them at a public market with no licence, as long as they need no refrigeration. Cream-filled and meat-filled pies are out.

That free pass is written for markets only. Selling the same baking from your door or by delivery falls outside it, so call Public Health before you build a delivery plan around it.

The language point is the one that genuinely distinguishes New Brunswick, and it is easy to get wrong because the federal rule sounds permissive. The single-language shortcut only works where an official language is the mother tongue of fewer than one in ten people nearby, and in most of New Brunswick both languages clear that bar. So both belong on the label.

New Brunswick prescribes no home kitchen notice, so there is no disclaimer sentence to print. No Nutrition Facts table is needed when you sell what you made yourself at a farmers market, a craft fair or a roadside stand.

The short version

what the rule is calledHome-based food guidance

when an inspector comesRoutine

annual sales limitNo cap

What you can sell in New Brunswick

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.

Bread, cookies, cakes, muffins, fruit pies and tarts that need no refrigeration, sold at a public market

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.

Cream-filled and meat-filled pies
Anything needing refrigeration
Selling from your door or by delivery, which falls outside the market permission

Where you are allowed to sell it

The researched record lists direct sales, farmers markets, online orders, delivery.

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.

Up nextPaperwork, training and inspections

Paperwork, training and inspections

The researched record does not list a general permit for this tier. The label record does not establish a province-wide permit. Check your local public health unit and municipality.

No training is recorded as universally required. Training varies by product and local authority. Confirm it before selling.

Routine 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.

You can bake at home and sell at a public market with no licence, as long as the food needs no refrigeration.
The permission is written for markets only. Selling from your door or by delivery falls outside it, so call Public Health first.
Both official languages belong on the label. The federal single-language shortcut only applies where an official language is the mother tongue of fewer than one in ten people nearby, and most of New Brunswick clears that bar for both.
New Brunswick prescribes no home kitchen notice, so there is no sentence to print.
No Nutrition Facts table is needed for food you made yourself and sell at a market, fair or stand.

What belongs on a New Brunswick label

New Brunswick Department of Health, checked September 9, 2026

01Product name
02Ingredients by weight
03Allergens
04Metric net quantity
05Name and city
06Best before date
07Bilingual English and French
No permit number. Required text at least 1.6 mm tall, the federal minimum, which is about 4.5 point. A Nutrition Facts table is usually not required for food you make and sell yourself; confirm it before you print.

Make a New Brunswick label

Start this weekend

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

Design the label bilingually from the start. Retrofitting a second language into a small sticker is painful.
Keep to public markets. Door sales and delivery fall outside this permission.
Call Public Health before planning delivery. The market exemption does not stretch to it.
Keep cream-filled and meat-filled pies out.
Do not add a home kitchen disclaimer. New Brunswick prescribes none.

Nearby places

Nearby guides

Neighboring provinces and states look similar until the one difference that matters. Worth a read if you sell across a border, or if someone on the other side gave you advice.

Pairs well with

Keep going

ToolCottage food label makerTurn your recipe, allergens and required statement into a printable label.GuideCottage food business guideThe wider framework: product, kitchen, sales channel, label and local checks.GuideCottage food label requirementsEvery field a cottage food label needs, in the order to check them before you print.

Questions, answered

Frequently asked questions

Sources

Details were checked against public sources on September 9, 2026. Confirm current prices, policies, or provider instructions before relying on them.

Is this the whole New Brunswick rule?

No, and you should not treat it as one. This is the official source read carefully on September 9, 2026 and put in one place. Your city, your county, the market you sell at and your own product can each add a layer this page does not know about. New Brunswick Department of Health is the authority, not us.

Can I just use the label maker and skip this?

The label maker opens with the fields this jurisdiction requires, so it will get the sticker right. What it cannot do is tell you whether the recipe is allowed, whether your kitchen qualifies, or whether you can sell through the channel you had in mind. A correct label on a product you are not allowed to sell is still a problem.

Does the right label make me compliant?

No. The label is the last step and the most visible one, which is why it gets all the attention. The recipe, the kitchen, the training, the registration and the sales route all sit upstream of it, and any one of them can be the thing that is actually wrong.

More cottage food laws

Selling somewhere else too?

The rule changes with the kitchen, the product and the sales route. Pick another place to compare.

Go to another place

Free label maker

Rule in front of you? Make the label.

The label maker opens with these requirements already loaded. Build it, then read the finished sticker back against the official source before you print a full sheet.

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