Cottage food label requirements in Alabama

Last checked 5 August 2026 · Informational only, not legal or food-safety advice. Verify anything important with your county health department before you print a run of labels.

What goes on the label

1. The product name, in words a customer would use.
2. Every ingredient, heaviest first.
3. The major allergens, called out separately from the ingredient list.
4. Who made it: your name or your business name.
5. How to reach you.
6. The date it was made.

What the label has to say

Alabama describes what the label has to get across rather than publishing a sentence to copy. This is a common form of it, read on 5 August 2026:

This food is not inspected by the Health Department.

Wording close to this is generally accepted. It has to appear at 10 point type or larger, which is part of the requirement rather than a design choice.

And one more requirement

• A disclaimer that the food may contain allergens (wording not fixed by the rule; a common form is "This product may contain allergens.")

Who actually enforces this

Alabama sets the rules centrally but they are enforced locally, so the answer that counts is your own office's rather than the state's. Find the office nearest you.

The detail

ADPH does NOT publish fixed wording. Its page requires only "A statement that the food is not inspected by the Health Department", and Ala. Code 22-20-5.1 phrases it as a statement that the food is not inspected by "the department or local health department". So any faithful paraphrase should pass; the wording above is the common form. The 10-point minimum is not specific to the disclaimer: ADPH states "All the following must be included on each food produced in a cottage food operation in at least 10-point font", covering every label element. Full required set: common or usual name of the food; name of the cottage food operation; home or P.O. Box address; ingredients in descending order of predominance; the not-inspected statement; the allergen disclaimer. Before selling, the operator takes the food safety course certificate, a sample label and a completed cottage food review form to the local county health department; ADPH is explicit that the county reviews the certificate and the labels and does NOT inspect the home kitchen.

Make one

Free, nothing saved, no account. It fills in Alabama's wording for you and prints a sheet.

What it is What is in it, heaviest first Make the labels

Where to verify all of this

Rules change, and this page can lag behind them. Before you rely on any of it:

• The rule itself
• The office nearest you