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Cottage food laws · IA
Selling homemade food in Iowa
Iowa runs a two-tier system: basic Cottage Foods (shelf-stable goods like baked items, jams, and pH-tested home-canned brined vegetables) need no license, registration, or inspection and have no sales cap. If you want to sell foods that need refrigeration, fermented foods, or certain poultry/meat, you instead need a Home Food Processing Establishment license, which requires an annual $50 fee, training, and inspection, and caps gross sales at $50,000/year.
Program
Iowa Home Food Establishment Law
Registration
No license, registration, or inspection needed for basic Cottage Foods (non-perishable items sold direct to consumer). A Home Food Processing Establishment (HFPE) license — application listing all products, $50 annual fee, at least one team member with food safety training, and an annual inspection — is required only if you want to sell foods needing refrigeration/temperature control, fermented foods, or certain poultry/meat items
Annual sales cap
No cap for the basic Cottage Food tier; Home Food Processing Establishments are capped at $50,000 in annual gross sales
Online sales
Allowed (see notes)
You can sell
- Baked goods without cream/custard fillings
- Jams, jellies, preserves
- Candy & chocolate
- Dry mixes & granola
- Popcorn
- Home-canned brined vegetables & fruits with pH at or below 4.60 or water activity at or below 0.85 (Cottage Food tier)
- Under an HFPE license only: fermented foods, foods requiring refrigeration, made-to-order foods served/delivered immediately, personally raised poultry (under 1,000 birds/year), and products containing red meat from an inspected source
You can't sell
- Raw milk & milk products (both tiers)
- Time/temperature-control-for-safety food packaged by reduced-oxygen packaging
- Most meat processing beyond the specific HFPE allowances
- Home-canned low-acid vegetables without pH/water-activity testing
Where you can sell
- Direct in-person sales from home
- Farmers markets
- Roadside stands
- Any venue for HFPE-licensed sellers
Selling online
Online ordering appears to be allowed for direct-to-consumer sales, consistent with Iowa's other in-state direct channels; Iowa's published guidance doesn't spell out online/shipping specifics in detail, so confirm delivery and shipping rules with DIAL before relying on them
What your labels must include
- Producer name, address, and phone or email
- Common product name
- Full ingredient list in descending order by weight
- Allergen declaration
- Net weight
- Processing/production date (for canned items)
- "This product was produced at a residential property that is exempt from state licensing and inspection." statement