Frequently Asked Questions

No. All beverages, including fruit and vegetable juices, kombucha, and tea require licensure and are not allowable to be sold under Michigan Cottage Food Law.

Roasted coffee beans and ground roasted coffee prepared in the vendor’s home kitchen are allowable to be sold under Michigan Cottage Food Law, but cannot be prepared into a drinkable form and sold by the vendor.

Yes, some CBD and hemp products are legal to sell at the farmers market.

Hulled hemp seed, hemp seed protein powder, and hemp seed oil are legal to sell at Michigan farmers markets and do not require licensure. These products are generally recognized as safe and do not require licensure to sell on their own. When added to a food product, the final product may require licensure.

Smokeable hemp flower is legal to sell at Michigan farmers markets and requires a Processor-Handler license. 

Topical CBD products, such as lotions or soaps, are legal to sell at Michigan farmers markets and require a Processor-Handler license. 

Products including smokeable marijuana flower, CBD and marijuana edibles, CBD pet treats, growable marijuana seeds, starts, and plants, and viable hemp hemp seeds, starts, and plants are not legal to buy or sell at farmers markets.

If the product being freeze dried is not considered to be a Potentially Hazardous Foods or a Temperature Controlled for Safety Foods, it may be eligible to be sold under Michigan Cottage Food Law. Those products must be freeze-dried in a commercial freeze dryer and vacuum packaged. The finished freeze-dried food, when properly processed, will typically yield a water activity below 0.60.

Food products that are not eligible to be freeze dried and sold under Cottage Food Law include ice cream and other dairy products, meat or fish, cut melon, eggs, cooked and/or cut vegetables (including tomatoes and leafy greens), candies purchased from other Cottage Food vendors, and cheesecake. This list is not exhaustive.

Food products that may be eligible to be freeze dried and sold under Cottage Food Law include whole, uncut produce such as berries, snap peas, and mushrooms, and candies sourced from approved sources or made by the vendor.

Yes, as long as the sample is a non-potentially hazardous food, sampling is allowed. A few additional reminders and considerations:

• The samples cannot contain additional ingredients that require time or temperature control. An example of this would be adding cream cheese to a dry dip mix or adding yogurt to granola.
• Safe food sampling guidelines must be followed, as with any other food sample.
• A label for the product being sampled should be available for customers to review.
• Cottage foods can not be used in cooking demonstrations by the market.

Peanut butter made from ground peanuts or other similar nut butters are allowable under the Cottage Food Law. If you have concerns about the specific mixes of other products in the nut butter, please contact your MDARD inspector.

Dahlias are not winter hardy in Michigan and are considered annuals. Annuals do not require licensing.

Products with cheese or cooked vegetables added to them require temperature control and are therefore no longer eligible cottage food items. Bread with herbs only could be a Cottage Food eligible item.

Licensing requirements depend on whether the succulents are perennials or not in Michigan’s climate. Annuals do not require licensing. Perennials require a nursery stock license from MDARD, of which there are multiple different types depending upon the scale of the operation.