Maryland Cottage Food Law: Food Safety Training Requirements

Cottage food refers to food that you prepare from your home kitchen and sell it directly to people within your state.

Each state has its own cottage food law that regulates the types of foods you can sell, to whom and how you sell the food, and even how much annual revenue you can make from selling your homemade goods.

Before you start a cottage food business, there are certain requirements you must meet, a common one being the completion of a basic food safety training course.

This article discusses the Maryland cottage food law, and whether you need food safety training to sell homemade food.

Maryland cottage food production

Maryland allows the production and sale of homemade goods that don’t require time or temperature controls to keep them safe.

Examples of approved foods include:

• baked goods (made without toppings or fillings that require refrigeration), such as bagels, pastries, brownies, cookies, breads, cakes, pies, and sourdough breads
• hot filled high-acid fruit jams, jellies, preserves, and butters made only with a natural pH of 4.6 or less
• hard candy and chocolate confections
• repackaged commercial ingredients, such as tea and spice/seasoning blends
• snack mixes from commercial sources, like cereal, granola, and trail mixes
• non-potentially hazardous snacks, like popcorn balls, kettle corn, popcorn, and nuts
• whole roasted coffee beans

Conversely, you cannot sell these foods:

• animal products
• beverages
• fermented foods
• nut or seed butters
• dehydrated or dried fruits, herbs, or vegetables
• flavored or ground coffee
• pasta
• raw dough and energy balls
• soft candies, like caramel and fudge
• syrups

You can sell allowed foods directly to people from your residence, at farmers’ markets and other public events, or by personal delivery or mail. You can also sell your homemade food directly to a retail food store, which most states don’t allow.

A retail store means a licensed foodservice facility that sells prepackaged foods, like grocery and convenience stores and retail markets or bakeries. It doesn’t include restaurants, mobile food establishments, coffee shops, cafeterias, and the like.

If you wish to sell your products to a retail food store, you must complete an online form.

Maryland regulates cottage food businesses differently than retail food establishments like restaurants, so you don’t need a license or permit and the department of health also won’t routinely inspect your home kitchen.

However, the department of health can inspect your inspection if the receive customer complaints about the safety of the food you sell or to investigate foodborne illness outbreaks potentially linked with your products.

Misbranding your product is also grounds for the state to inspect your kitchen.

Maryland restricts annual sales for cottage businesses to $50,000.

Do you need food safety training to sell homemade food in Maryland?

Maryland’s cottage food law does not require food safety training unless you sell your products to a retail food store.

In this case, you must earn a food handler certificate or card from an ANSI-National Accreditation Board (ANAB)-accredited course.

A food handlers certificate proves that you have completed a course on basic food safety principles and passed a test about these principles.

FoodSafePal’s Food Handler course is ANAB accredited so it meets Maryland’s cottage food law requirements for food safety training.

FoodSafePal’s Food Handler course is designed for food workers in retail food establishments so some of the content isn’t applicable to cottage food operators.

Still, it covers the important food safety principles you must know to keep your homemade products safe from disease-causing organisms called pathogens that can make people sick.

After you complete the course content, you must take a test and answer at least 28 (70%) out of 40 multiple-choice question to pass and earn your food handlers certificate and card.

You can learn and test in under two hours completely online.

Upon passing, you can immediately download or print your food handlers certificate and card.

You’ll need to upload a copy of your certificate before you can submit your request to sell to retail food stores.

You must maintain the training by retaking and passing the course every three years.

Labeling requirements

Maryland’s cottage food law requires that each food is properly labeled with certain information.

This information allow people to whom you sell contact you in the case of an illness potentially linked to your product.

It also informs customers of allergens that may be present and that the food is produced in a home kitchen not routinely inspected by the health department.

This label must include the following information:

• your business name and address (a PO Box address is prohibited)
• the common or usual name of the product
• the ingredients listed in descending order of predominance by weight
• the net weight or volume of the food by standard measure or numerical count
• allergen information as specified by federal labeling requirements
• the statement in 10-point type: Made by a cottage food business that is not subject to Maryland’s food safety regulations.

If you make any type of health or nutrition claim, you must follow specific federal labeling requirements.

If you sell your food products at retail stores, labels must additionally include the phone number and email address of your business, and the date the product was made.

Regardless of to whom you sell your products, if you don’t want to list your business address on the label, you can request a unique ID number by completing this form.

With this number, however, you must include the phone number of your business.

The bottom line

Under the Maryland cottage food law, you can produce and sell foods that don’t require time or temperature controls like baked and other dry goods directly to people throughout the state.

If you want to start a cottage food business in Maryland and sell your products to a retail food store, you must first earn a food handlers card by completing and passing an ANAB-accredited food handler training course, such as the one offered by FoodSafePal.

After you complete the course and pass the test, you will be issued a certificate as proof of completion. You must maintain this certificate by retaking an approved food safety course every three years.

Each food you make and sell must also have a label with the required information.