Cottage food laws in North Carolina

The limits

Sales cap

None

You can sell

"Low-risk," shelf-stable foods that do not require refrigeration or freezing: non-refrigerated baked goods, jams/jellies/preserves, candies, dried mixes/spices, certain beverages (iced tea, coffee, lemonade), shelf-stable sauces (e.g., balsamic dressing), acid/acidified foods (pickles, BBQ sauce) after evaluation, and freeze-dried candies.

You cannot sell

"High-risk" items: refrigerated or frozen products, low-acid canned foods, dairy products, seafood, bottled water/juice, and bakery items with cream fillings.

Getting set up

Permit / registration

Yes — registration as a Home Processor, including a mandatory home-kitchen inspection before selling. Notably, any pet that enters the home at any time, even only overnight, disqualifies the kitchen from the program.

Cost

There is no charge for the home kitchen inspection required to join North Carolina's Home Processor program, and no license or permit fee is assessed — NCDA&CS issues a 'Notice of Inspection' rather than a permit. (Separately, home processors who want to make acidified foods such as pickles, salsas, or hot sauces must complete an NC State-run acidified-foods/Better Process Control School course and have their product tested; those costs were referenced by secondary sources but could not be confirmed with specific dollar figures against a primary source in this research.)

Training

No general training mandate is stated on the primary program page; producers of acidified foods "may be required to take an Acidified Food Course."

Kitchen inspection

Yes — a Food Regulatory Specialist inspects the kitchen and packaging areas before approval; NCDA&CS states roughly 8-12 weeks from application to inspection/contact.

Labeling

Product name; manufacturer name and address; net weight (oz/lb and grams); full ingredient list in descending order by weight; allergens listed in the ingredient statement or in a separate "Contains" statement. Labels are required for individually packaged items, wholesale sales, or items shipped by mail; exemptions exist for direct sales such as home pickup, delivery, or sales at special events.

Where you can sell

Permitted venues

Retail sales from the home, farmers markets, local businesses, and direct-to-consumer sales.

Online sales

Not confirmedUnverified — confirm with NCDA&CS. Neither the primary NCDA&CS Home Processor program page nor NC State Extension's guidance on the program addresses whether online sales are permitted for Home Processor-registered producers.

Delivery in state

North Carolina's Home Processor program contemplates home-processed products being mailed or shipped to customers: NCDA&CS's own program page imposes an additional labeling requirement specifically for products sent via postal carriers, which presupposes that mailing/shipping is an available, permitted sales method (subject to that extra label) rather than a prohibited one.

Shipping out of state

Not confirmedUnverified — confirm with NCDA&CS. The program page's requirement for extra labeling when products are 'shipped using postal services such as USPS or FEDEX' does not specify whether this covers shipments crossing state lines or is limited to in-state mailing, so it cannot be read as an affirmative statement that out-of-state sales are authorized. Federal rules independently govern interstate commerce in food regardless of what North Carolina's program does or does not say.

The fine print

Statute

N.C. Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, N.C. Gen. Stat. Chapter 106, Article 12; producers also generally reference 21 C.F.R. Part 117, Subpart B (Good Manufacturing Practices).

Recent changes

No statutory or administrative change to the Home Processor exemption's core structure (no license/fee, home kitchen inspection, direct-to-consumer and other approved sales venues) was found enacted between 2023 and 2026. House Bill 833 ('The FRESH Act'), introduced in the NC House in spring 2025, proposes to expand the Home Processor Program, but as of this research it remains in early-stage committee referral in the House and has not passed into law. Separately, NCDA&CS's current program page still requires a home to be free of household pets at any time to qualify for the program, and a petition for rulemaking to relax that pet restriction (allowing pets if excluded from the kitchen and adjoining prep areas) was filed with the NC Office of Administrative Hearings around January 2026; as of this research that rule change has not been adopted and the existing pet-free requirement remains in force.

Notes

North Carolina has no sales-cap-based "cottage food law" as such — its Home Processor program instead requires registration and a mandatory kitchen inspection but imposes no dollar cap. A distinctive requirement is a total prohibition on pets (even overnight-only pets) in the home. No MEHKO-specific law was identified in the sources reviewed. Contact NCDA&CS Food & Drug Protection Division (984-236-4820 / homeprocessing@ncagr.gov) to confirm fee, online-sales, and interstate-shipping specifics not published on the primary program page. Confirmed from a university extension or Institute for Justice source rather than the agency's own page: Cost.