Delaware Cottage Food Law: Food Safety Training Requirements
Food that you make at home and sell directly to people is known as cottage food.
Each state has its own cottage food laws that regulate the types of foods you can sell, how and to whom you can sell, and even how much revenue you can earn each year.
To start a cottage food business, many states require some type of approved food safety training.
This article discusses the Delaware cottage food law, and whether you need food safety training to sell homemade food.

Delaware cottage food production
Delaware’s cottage food law allows people to make and sell foods that don’t require time or temperature controls (TCS) to keep them safe.
Examples of allowed foods include:
- breads
- cookies
- rolls
- muffins
- brownies
- fruit pies and pastries
- jams, jellies, and other fruit preserves
You can sell these foods directly to other people in the state. You cannot sell your goods online but you can advertise and market your products online.
Although Delaware does not regulate cottage food businesses the same as retail food establishments like restaurants, the state may still conduct one or more inspections before you open for business to ensure your home kitchen meets the required standards.
The Delaware Division of Public Health may also inspect your kitchen in response to customer complaints, including reports of foodborne illnesses linked with your products.
Under Delaware’s cottage food law, you cannot exceed $25,000 in annually revenue from the sale of your homemade goods.
Summary
Under the Delaware cottage food law, you can sell foods that don’t require time-temperature controls for safety directly to consumers. The regulations around cottage food businesses are less strict than they are for retail food establishments like restaurants, but the state can still inspect your kitchen in certain instances.
Do you need food safety training to sell homemade food in Delaware?
To register your cottage food business in Delaware, you must complete an application.
As part of this application, you must provide proof that you have completed an approved food safety training course.
One option for an approved food safety training course is one that is accredited by the ANSI-National Accreditation Board (ANAB), such as FoodSafePal’s Food Handler course.

Earn Your Food Handlers Card + Certificate to Sell Cottage Foods
Accredited & Meets Delaware’s Cottage Food Law
FoodSafePal’s Food Handler course is designed for food workers in retail food establishments like restaurants and other places that prepare and store food like nursing homes.
As such, some of the content isn’t applicable to cottage food business owners. Still, the course contains all of the necessary food safety principles you must know to keep your customers safe.
You can learn and test in under two hours. The test consists of 40 multiple-choice questions, and you must answer at least 28 (70%) correctly to pass and earn your food handler’s certificate and card.
After you pass, you can immediately download or print your certificate and card, with which you must include a copy with your application.
Summary
Delaware’s cottage food law requires the completion of an approved food safety course — such as FoodSafePal’s — as one of the requirements to operate your cottage food business.
Labeling requirements
Delaware requires that each product you sell is properly labeled with the following information:
- name, address, phone number, and email of your cottage food business
- product name
- net weight or unit count
- date of production / lot number
- list of ingredients in decreasing order by weight (unless the label is too small to allow this, in which case, you must make the list available to customers upon their request)
- the presence of each major food allergen (unless the allergen is already part of the common or usual name of the ingredient, for example, milk)
- The statement, “This food is made in a Cottage Food Establishment and is NOT subject to routine Government Food Safety Inspections.”

This information must be printed in at least 10-point type in a color that provides a clear contrast to the background label.
Any packaging that you use must be food grade in quality.
You must maintain a record of the date of production, lot number, and date and location of sales for each batch of product that you make and maintain these records for three years.
Summary
Delaware requires that you label each product with certain information, such as the name and contact information of your cottage food business, ingredients, and the presence of any major food allergen.
The bottom line
Delaware’s cottage food law allows you to make foods that don’t require time or temperature controls to keep them safe in your home kitchen and sell them directly to people living in the state.
To register your cottage food business with the state, you must complete an approved food safety course, such as FoodSafePal’s ANAB-accredited Food Handler training

Earn Your Food Handlers Card + Certificate to Sell Cottage Foods
Accredited & Meets Delaware’s Cottage Food Law
Don’t forget that each food product you sell must be properly packaged and contain a label with the required information.