Hi there,

4 more cottage food bills have passed, including the most important bill of the year, a couple smaller bills, and a bill that is simultaneously both a significant improvement and somewhat disappointing.

Let's start off with what I'm deeming the most important cottage food bill of 2025:

Texas SB 541

This is not just an important bill because of what it improves. And don't get me wrong, it improves a LOT of things about Texas' law.

But what makes this bill truly special is just how much work and effort went into getting it passed. At least 500 cottage food producers participated in the legislative process, which is unheard of.

And they needed that much support, because Texas also has a large group of people that are against cottage food bills. There were a ton of behind-the-scenes things that happened to get this bill to pass.

Since Texas is on a 2-year legislative cycle and they had a surprising loss in 2023 and they didn't try to pass a bill in 2021, this bill has been 6 years in the making! And it is a massive step forward for them.

Here are the changes their bill will make:

• Will increase the sales limit to $150,000 per year
• Will allow indirect sales of non-perishable foods to retail stores
• Will allow many types of perishable foods (e.g. cheesecakes, vegetable soups, casseroles, etc)
• Will allow producers to exclude their home address on labels
• Will clarify that employees can do in-person delivery of products
• Will prohibit local governments from requiring licenses or permits
• Will increase the sales limit annually to account for inflation

I cannot understate just how hard it must have been to get perishable foods passed in this bill. And then to increase the sales cap to $150k on top of that. And then on top of that, it doesn't require any licensing or inspection process. I'm sure some restaurant associations and other lobbyists came down hard on this bill.

Texas will become the first state to have a law that actually punishes government employees for not following the law. There are certain areas in Texas where officials don't agree with the law and continue to try to require people to get permitted, or tell them they can't sell homemade food. This bill states that if a government official knowingly tries to do that, they will get fired!

Perhaps the one glaring omission in this bill is the lack of shipping. There are now 34 states that allow shipping cottage food products, so it's a bit surprising that Texas will have one of the best laws in the country, but still won't let customers take an online order and ship it within their state.

But overall, really great stuff from Texas, and this will be the biggest win of the year in our industry. These changes will go into effect in September.


Minnesota HF 2446

Speaking of shipping, Minnesota passed their bill and becomes the 35th state to allow shipping.

That's the good news. The bad news is that this bill won't take effect until August 2027!

To make a long story short, the shipping allowance was stripped from their bill at the eleventh hour, and cottage food advocates fought to get it back in, but could only get it back in if the effective date was pushed back 2 years.

On one hand, it's super disappointing, and 2 years will feel like an eternity to the producers who want to be able to ship right now. On the other hand, in the legislative world, 2 years is a relatively short time. If they had not gotten anything passed this time, there's no guarantee that a shipping allowance would get passed by 2027 anyway.

This bill will also simplify their current two-tier system into a single tier that requires all cottage food producers to pay a registration fee. The vast majority of cottage food producers in Minnesota currently fall into the free tier, so they probably aren't too happy that they'll have to pay a fee (at least it's low at $30/year), especially if they don't want to ship. This change also won't take effect until August 2027.


New Hampshire HB 150 & HB 304

Technically all 6 of New Hampshire's bills have passed, but the governor hasn't signed most of them, so we don't yet know when they will go into effect.

But she has signed a couple of them so far:

• HB 150 will allow producers to use commercial kitchen equipment
• HB 304 will let producers replace their home address on labels with an email address, and let them replace their ingredients list with a QR code on labels

This is the first time a state has allowed cottage food labels to contain a QR code in lieu of required information. This will be especially helpful to those who sell small individual treats, like cake pops.

They are all relatively small changes, but definitely significant ones. They will go into effect on July 13th.


So there you have it. 4 more bills that have passed, making that 8 bills that have already passed this year! That already matches the number of bills that passed in all of last year.


See the 2025 Cottage Food Bills Map


Forraging ahead,

David