21 CFR 101.9(j)(1) · state law
Cottage food label requirements
A cottage food label usually does not need a Nutrition Facts panel — 21 CFR 101.9(j)(1) exempts small direct-to-consumer sellers, provided the label, the labelling and the advertising say nothing nutritional at all. What is never exempt is the ingredient statement and the allergen declaration. Below: exactly which elements you need, what destroys the exemption, and a jam label built as a worked example.
What has to be on the jar
| Element | Exempt? | What it is | Authority |
|---|---|---|---|
| Statement of identity | No | The common or usual name of the food, on the principal display panel, in bold type. | 21 CFR 101.3 |
| Net quantity of contents | No | In the lower 30% of the principal display panel, in both US customary and metric units. | 21 CFR 101.105 |
| Name and place of business | No | The manufacturer, packer or distributor, with street address unless listed in a phone directory. | 21 CFR 101.5 |
| Ingredient statement | No | Common or usual names in descending order of predominance by weight. | 21 CFR 101.4 |
| Allergen declaration | No | All nine major allergens, in the ingredient list or a Contains statement. | FD&C Act 403(w) |
| Nutrition Facts panel | Sometimes | Exempt under 101.9(j)(1) for small direct-to-consumer sellers making no nutrition claims. | 21 CFR 101.9 |
| State cottage food statement | Varies | Many states require wording such as “Made in a home kitchen…”. Check your state. | State law |
The sentence that costs you the exemption
“Provided, That the food bears no nutrition claims or other nutrition information in any context on the label or in labeling or advertising. Claims or other nutrition information subject the food to the provisions of this section.”
Read “in any context” strictly. It is not limited to the jar. A calorie count in an Etsy listing, a “refined-sugar-free” line in an Instagram caption for the product, a nutrition table on your own website, a chalkboard at the market — all of it is labelling or advertising. If you want to say something nutritional about a product, you have accepted full nutrition labelling for it, and you may as well build the panel properly.
The reverse is also true and worth knowing: printing a correct Nutrition Facts panel is not a “claim”. Nothing stops an exempt seller from labelling voluntarily. What you cannot do is publish loose nutritional statements without a panel behind them.
A worked example: strawberry jam
Jam is the archetypal cottage food and the archetypal yield problem: it boils off roughly a quarter of its weight, so the raw ingredients and the filled jars are two different numbers. Enter the raw ingredients and the finished net weight separately, and the panel keeps the nutrients honest while getting the serving weight right.
Strawberry Jam: 50 calories per serving of 1 tbsp (21g).
Ingredient and allergen statements
INGREDIENTS: Strawberries, Sugar, Lemon juice, Fruit pectin.
No major allergen detected, so no “Contains” statement is required.
Show the arithmetic
| Ingredient | Weight | Per 100 g | Contributes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sugar | 600.0 g | 99.80 g | 598.80 g |
| Strawberries | 907.2 g | 4.89 g | 44.36 g |
| Lemon juice | 61.0 g | 2.52 g | 1.54 g |
| Fruit pectinno USDA value | 49.6 g | 0.00 g | 0.00 g |
| Whole recipe | 644.70 g | ||
644.70 g ÷ 55 servings = 11.722 g per serving
1 g and above rounds to the nearest 1 g increment. → declared as 12g (101.9(c)(6)(ii))
Incomplete USDA data: Sugar, Fruit pectin. Missing values are treated as zero, which can understate a nutrient. Vitamin D is the usual gap.
Why the small-package format matters here
A four-ounce jam jar does not have room for a standard vertical panel. 21 CFR 101.9(j)(13)(ii) lets packages with 40 square inches or less of labelling surface use a compressed tabular display, drop the quantitative weights for vitamin D, calcium, iron and potassium, and shorten the footnote to “% DV = % Daily Value”. Below 12 square inches with no nutrition claims, 101.9(j)(13)(i) may exempt the package from nutrition labelling entirely.
Measure the surface actually available to bear labelling, not the total surface of the container: the area under a permanently affixed base, and the area a lid needs, do not count. The small package format page has the detail.
Frequently asked questions
- Does a cottage food label need a Nutrition Facts panel?
- Often not, under the small-business exemption in 21 CFR 101.9(j)(1). It applies to a person making direct sales to consumers whose annual gross sales are not more than $500,000, or whose annual sales of food to consumers are not more than $50,000 — provided the food bears no nutrition claims or other nutrition information anywhere on the label, in labeling, or in advertising. State cottage food laws are separate and additional; they set what you may sell, where, and what your state requires on the label.
- What destroys the exemption?
- Saying anything nutritional. 21 CFR 101.9(j)(1)(i) is blunt: 'Claims or other nutrition information subject the food to the provisions of this section.' 'Low sugar', 'high protein', 'only 90 calories', 'a good source of fibre', or a nutrition table on your website for a product you sell under the exemption — any of those pulls the product into full nutrition labelling. Not just the claim: the whole panel.
- What is never exempt?
- Allergen declaration and the ingredient statement. The nine major allergens must be declared under section 403(w) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which is a different provision from 21 CFR 101.9 and is not covered by its exemptions. The ingredient statement in descending order of predominance by weight is required by 21 CFR 101.4. So is a statement of identity, a net quantity of contents and the name and place of business of the responsible party.
- What is the low-volume exemption and do I need it?
- 21 CFR 101.9(j)(18) exempts a product where the person claiming it employed fewer than 100 full-time equivalents on average and fewer than 100,000 units of that product were sold in the US in the preceding 12 months. Unlike the small-business exemption it is not automatic: a notice has to be filed with FDA before the period it covers, and the same no-claims condition applies. Most cottage operations qualify under 101.9(j)(1) and never need it.
- If I am exempt, why would I put a panel on anyway?
- Because buyers ask for it. Farmers' market regulars increasingly do, and any move to a grocery shelf, a co-op, an online marketplace or a wholesale account will require one — most retailers demand it as a condition of listing regardless of what FDA requires. Building the panel early also tells you what your product actually contains before a customer does.
- Do cottage food rules differ by state?
- Substantially. States decide which foods may be made in a home kitchen, whether you may ship, whether you may sell wholesale, revenue caps, registration and inspection, and what the label must say — many require an explicit statement such as 'Made in a home kitchen that is not subject to state inspection'. Federal rules are the floor, not the ceiling. Check your state's department of agriculture or health before printing anything.
Keep going
- allergen statement generatorBuild a Contains statement from the nine major allergens, including sesame since January 2023.
- food label generatorThe whole food label, not just the panel: ingredient statement, allergen statement and net quantity.
- small package label formatA compressed tabular panel for packages of 40 square inches or less — the jam jar, the single-serve bar, the sample pack.
- serving size referenceAll 146 reference amounts customarily consumed from 21 CFR 101.12(b), the table that decides your serving size.