Virginia Can you legally sell food from home in Virginia?
Cottage Food Law
Virginia allows producers to start a food business from home without getting licensed or inspected, but it comes with some restrictions.
If you want to have fewer restrictions (make more types of food, sell at more locations, etc), you can apply to be a home food processing operation, which requires a home kitchen inspection and is much more complicated than using the law described below.
Under this law, a producer can only sell directly from home and at farmers markets and other events, and they can only sell certain types of non-perishable food. Also, a couple types of products have sales limits (honey and acidified foods).
Selling Where can you sell homemade food products?
You can advertise your business/products online, even though you cannot sell through the internet.
You can sell pure honey to any venue, without restriction.
Allowed Foods What food products can you sell from home?
You can only sell up to $9,000 of acidified foods (pickles, salsas, etc) per year.
You can only sell pure honey, not infused honey products.
Limitations How will your home food business be restricted?
Honey producers can’t sell more than 250 gallons of honey per year.
Business What do you need to do to sell food from home?
You do not need a license from the ag department to start your business, though there may be other local requirements (like a business license or zoning approval) that you need to fulfill.
Most food businesses in Virginia are charged an annual $40 fee, but since you are exempt from inspection, this fee does not apply. If you get a $40 bill from the ag department, you should dispute it.
Labeling How do you label cottage food products?
Chocolate Chip Cookies
"NOT FOR RESALE - PROCESSED AND PREPARED WITHOUT STATE INSPECTION."
Forrager Cookie Company
123 Chewy Way, Cookietown, VA 73531
Phone: (123) 456-7890
Email: cookies@forrager.com
Produced on 10/31/2024
If your product is too small to have an individual labels, and/or is to be consumed on-site, you can place a sign with the required label information at the point-of-sale instead. However, all acidified foods must be labeled individually.
Instead of the statement above, honey producers must label their jars with this statement: “PROCESSED AND PREPARED WITHOUT STATE INSPECTION. WARNING: Do Not Feed Honey to Infants Under One Year Old.”
Resources Where can you find more information about this law?
- Department
- Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services
- foodsafety@vdacs.virginia.gov
- Telephone
- 804-786-3520
Food Safety and Security Program
This law was amended in 2013 to allow many more types of products.
It was amended again in 2024 to allow producers to sell at all types of events, only months after a woman was mostly shutdown by the ag department. Within just a couple months of that event, the ag department changed their stance due to an letter from the Institute for Justice, and a month later, their new cottage food bill passed.
Starting in 2013, a number of individuals came together to create a food freedom initiative, and they tried to get a food freedom bill passed for many years (see HB 135 & HB 1290), though they were unsuccessful. It was one of the strongest and earliest food freedom efforts in the nation.