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

What Tennessee actually decides

Most states write a cottage food programme and then list what you can do inside it. Tennessee did the opposite. Section 53-1-118 exempts the production and sale of homemade food items from the licensing, permitting, inspecting, packaging and labelling laws of the state, full stop, with one carve-out: the Department of Health investigating a reported foodborne illness. There is no permit to get because there is no permit. There is no allowed-food list because there is no list.

July 2025 extended it further. Foods that need time and temperature control became legal, pasteurised dairy and exempt poultry included. But they come with a condition the shelf-stable items do not have: they may only be sold in person, by you or by an agent such as a farm stand on the property where the food was made. So a chilled item cannot be shipped, mailed or sold through a grocery store, even though a cookie can.

Two lines end the exemption and both are easy to cross by accident. Producing anywhere other than a private residence puts you back under the food manufacturing licence, so a community kitchen, a church hall or a rented commercial space does not qualify. And the exemption covers sales inside Tennessee. Ship one order over a state line and you are in a different regime.

Counties and municipalities are preempted from prohibiting or regulating homemade food, which is unusually strong. What the exemption does not touch is tax law or the rest of business regulation, so a business licence and sales tax are still your problem.

One caveat on the sourcing. The agency's own page did not spell out the allowed-food list, the prohibited-food list or the training requirement, so those came from the statute and secondary sources rather than from Tennessee Department of Agriculture directly. Everything else on this page was read off an official source on September 9, 2026. If one of those points decides your case, ask them.

What you can sell in Tennessee

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.

• Any homemade food item, a non-alcoholic beverage included, that needs no time or temperature control and is produced and packaged at your private residence. Tennessee has no codified allowed-food list, only this category
• Since 1 July 2025, homemade food items that do need time and temperature control, subject to the extra conditions in section 53-1-118(b)(3)
• Poultry, poultry byproducts and poultry food products, where the business runs under the federal 1,000-poultry exemption or uses only inspected and passed poultry bearing the official mark
• Pasteurised dairy inside a temperature-controlled item. Only unpasteurised milk is excluded
• Acidified canned foods such as salsas, pickles, chow chow and relish, at pH below 4.6
• Low-acid canned foods such as canned vegetables, beans, vegetable broth and pepper jelly, pressure-canned, at pH above 4.6
• Dehydrated and freeze-dried fruits, vegetables and candy
• Baked goods, candy, dry goods, jams and jellies, bottled condiments, and canned fermented foods such as sauerkraut, kimchi and kombucha. The last four entries come from a UT extension bulletin written before the 2025 amendment, not from TDA.

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.

• Unpasteurized milk, in a temperature-controlled item
• Alcoholic beverages, in a temperature-controlled item
• Fish, in a temperature-controlled item
• Shellfish products, in a temperature-controlled item
• Meat, meat byproducts and meat food products, red meat and dried meats such as jerky included, in a temperature-controlled item
• Anything sold across state lines. The exemption covers intrastate sales only
• Anything not produced at your private residence. A community kitchen, church, restaurant or commercial facility needs a TDA food manufacturing licence whatever the food is
• Tennessee publishes no prohibited list of its own; the five items above are the statute’s exclusions for temperature-controlled items, and the last two are derived from the definitions. A shelf-stable meat product would still meet the meat inspection laws the Act does not displace, which the statute does not spell out.

Where you are allowed to sell it

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

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 permit, licence, registration or fee exists. Section 53-1-118(a) exempts production and sale of homemade food items from all licensing, permitting, inspecting, packaging and labelling laws of this state, except when the Department of Health is investigating a reported foodborne illness. TDA confirms it issues no permits and does not inspect under this law. Producing anywhere other than a private residence, or selling out of state, drops you back into the food manufacturing licence regime. Counties and municipalities are preempted from prohibiting or regulating homemade food, though the exemption does not touch tax law or other business regulation. No sales cap is stated in the statute or on the TDA page.

No training is recorded as universally required. No training or certification requirement appears in section 53-1-118 or on the TDA page. The blanket exemption from licensing and permitting makes the absence structural, but TDA never states it 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.

• The food is produced, and if packaged packaged, at your own private residence. A community kitchen, church, restaurant or commercial facility does not qualify and needs a TDA manufacturing licence.
• You must not impede a Department of Health investigation of a reported foodborne illness. That is the only circumstance in which your kitchen is subject to state oversight.
• The exemption does not licence adulterated food. TDA may still act against non-compliant homemade products found in commerce.
• Sales stay inside Tennessee.
• Tennessee sets no home kitchen hygiene rules at all: no pets rule, no children rule, no separate-equipment rule, no water test, no separate storage.

What changed, and when

A dated change means an older checklist can be confidently wrong. Read the instrument itself at the official source before you trust anything written before these dates.

• 2025-07-01: Foods needing time and temperature control became legal, pasteurised dairy and exempt poultry included, but they may only be sold in person by the producer or by an agent, such as a farm stand on the property where the food was prepared. So a chilled or dairy item cannot be shipped, mailed or sold through a grocery store even though a shelf-stable cookie can. Unpasteurised milk, alcohol, fish, shellfish and meat stay out.
• 2022-07-01: The original Food Freedom Act. It is the reason the regime looks nothing like a normal cottage food law: it is an exemption, not a permit scheme.

Start this weekend

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

• Keep production at your own private residence. A community or rented kitchen drops you back into licensing.
• Keep sales inside Tennessee. The exemption is intrastate, and one shipped order out of state ends it.
• If you make anything chilled or dairy, sell it in person only. Shipping and grocery resale are for shelf-stable items.
• Handle your tax and business registration separately. The food exemption does not reach either.
• Cooperate with any Department of Health foodborne illness investigation. That is the one time the state can look at your kitchen.