Cottage food label requirements in Maine

Last checked 5 August 2026 · Informational only, not legal or food-safety advice. Verify anything important with Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry 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.

Maine asks for no "not inspected" line

The kitchen is inspected before any sale, so there is nothing to disclaim. Everything else above still applies.

The detail

Maine is not a cottage food state in the usual sense. Making shelf-stable food at home for sale requires a Home Food Processor (Home Food Manufacturing) license from DACF, and DACF inspects; there is therefore no 'this kitchen was not inspected' disclosure to print, because the kitchen is inspected. Under DACF Rule Chapter 345 section 7, a label is required only when the product is sold to stores, sold wholesale for further distribution, or retailed by any manner of public marketing, and must then show: common or usual name of the product; ingredients in order of predominance; net weight or numerical count; name and address of the producer, manufacturer or distributor with zip code. 'When sold directly to a consumer from the home, the product does not require a label.' Refrigerated products such as cheesecake or cream pie need a commercial license, not a home license. Canned shelf-stable products must be cleared by a process authority (University of Maine Food Testing Services) before licensing. Separate layer to check: under the Maine Food Sovereignty Act (7 M.R.S. ch. 8-F), a municipality, plantation, or county (for unorganized territory) may adopt an ordinance covering direct producer-to-consumer transactions, and the State then does not enforce its food licensing laws for those transactions in that town. Over a hundred Maine towns have done so. Ask the municipal clerk whether your town has one and what, if anything, it requires on a label.

Make one

Free, nothing saved, no account. It leaves the inspection line off, as Maine asks, 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
• Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry