Last verified: October 23, 2026. I’m a Texas home baker, not a lawyer — laws change, so always confirm with the Arkansas Department of Health (ADH) before you sell.

ARKANSAS COTTAGE FOOD AT A GLANCE

The law: the Arkansas Food Freedom Act (Act 1040 of 2021, Ark. Code §§ 20-57-501 et seq.), which repealed the old cottage food law (§ 20-57-504) and its $5,000 sales cap.

License, permit, or registration: None. No application, no fee, no inspection, no training course — none of it exists for homemade food under the Food Freedom Act.

Annual sales cap: None — the old $5,000 cottage food cap was repealed in 2021.

Kitchen inspection: None — there’s no registry and no inspecting authority for homemade food.

Food handler course: Not required.

Who can produce: Anyone — a producer can be an individual, and two or more individuals can also operate as a partnership, corporation, or other business entity.

Shipping and online sales: Allowed — including online, mail order, and delivery sales. (There’s one geographic wrinkle; see Where You Can Sell.)

Wholesale and retail resale: Allowed — your food can be sold at grocery stores, restaurants, and other retailers, and there’s no in-state-only limit.

WHY ARKANSAS IS QUIETLY ONE OF THE FREEST STATES IN THE COUNTRY FOR HOME BAKERS

Most state cottage food laws are a bundle of permissions wrapped in restrictions: sell these foods, at these places, under this cap, with this label, after this training. The Arkansas Food Freedom Act works the other way. It starts from the premise that you have a right to make food in your home kitchen and sell it directly to an informed buyer — and then it removes the state from the transaction almost entirely. No license to apply for, no fee to pay, no inspector to schedule, no course to sit through, no cap to track, no in-state-only fence around your customers. If your frustration with other states’ cottage food rules is the paperwork, Arkansas simply declines to create any.

The statute even protects you from local interference: no city or county can use its own licensing, permitting, or inspection rules to shut down what the Freedom Act allows. A farmers market can still set its own vendor rules — that’s private business, not government — but your town can’t layer a permit requirement on top of a state law that deliberately has none.

There’s exactly one thing the law asks of you in return, and it’s the thing you’d do anyway if you were proud of your food: label it honestly. Five disclosures, printed where the buyer can see them — including the exact statement that the food came from an uninspected home kitchen. That’s the whole regulatory program. Everything else in this guide is detail around that one exchange: your freedom to sell, the buyer’s right to know.

WHAT YOU CAN (AND CAN’T) SELL

The Freedom Act’s list is short because the definition is broad: “homemade” food and drink, made in Arkansas, sold by the person who made it. There’s no closed list of product categories like Nevada’s. If it’s food you made in your home kitchen and it’s not on the excluded list, it’s in.

Allowed: Baked goods, jams, jellies, fruit butter, candy, dried fruit, dry mixes, granola, popcorn — and beyond the bakery case, the Act also covers things like pickles, salsas, and fermented foods that most states force into licensed kitchens. The legal test isn’t a product list; it’s that the food is “not potentially hazardous” in the way the Act defines it, or is otherwise a type the Act expressly includes.

Freeze-drying: Allowed — with a footnote. Freeze-dried foods aren’t named in the Act one way or the other, but ADH’s guidance treats shelf-stable freeze-dried products as within the homemade-food definition as long as they’re not potentially hazardous. Freeze-dried candy, fruits, and similar shelf-stable items are the common examples. As always with an unlisted product, the safe move is a quick confirmation with ADH before you build a product line around it.

Not allowed: Anything outside the homemade-food definition — food made outside your home, food you didn’t produce yourself, and products the Act reserves to licensed establishments (meat and poultry processing beyond what’s allowed, for example). Alcohol is its own regulatory world and isn’t a Freedom Act product. And the usual food-safety reality applies: the Act shields you from licensing, not from liability — if your food makes someone sick, you’re still responsible.

ARKANSAS LABELING: THE 5 REQUIRED DISCLOSURES

Arkansas keeps it simple — but “simple” doesn’t mean “optional.” Every sale, every package, needs these five things, and the statute (§ 20-57-505) names them exactly:

  1. The name and address of the producer;
  2. The name of the product;
  3. The ingredients, in descending order by weight — and this one has teeth: the ingredient list must name every major food allergen the product contains, because the Freedom Act’s labeling section points to the federal allergen law;
  4. The net quantity of contents, stated plainly; and
  5. This exact statement, printed where the buyer can’t miss it: This product was produced in a private residence that is exempt from state licensing and inspection. This product may contain allergens.

How the disclosures travel: If the sale is in person and the package is right there, the label goes on the package. If you’re selling online, by mail, or by phone, the same five disclosures have to appear on the product’s web page or ordering page before the buyer commits — the statute’s “directly to the consumer” sales include remote ones, and the labeling follows the food, not the storefront.

What’s NOT required: no nutrition panel, no sell-by date, no lot code — Arkansas asks for the five disclosures and nothing else. (An ingredient list is one of the five, so don’t read “nothing else” too literally.)

WHERE YOU CAN SELL IN ARKANSAS

From your home, at a farmers market, at a roadside stand — anywhere in Arkansas where a willing buyer meets you. The Freedom Act covers direct producer-to-consumer sales, and “direct” here doesn’t mean “face to face.” It means the producer sells to the end consumer, with no middleman taking ownership in between.

Online and mail order — yes. Arkansas is one of the few states where you can take an order on your website and ship the box. The Act expressly allows internet, mail, and delivery sales of homemade food.

Stores, restaurants, and wholesale — yes, with the one real limit. Your homemade food can be sold through a grocery store, a restaurant, or any other retailer. The wrinkle: the retailer has to be in Arkansas. The Freedom Act protects sales within the state; once your food crosses a state line, you’re in federal jurisdiction and the other state’s law.

The one geographic footnote from the at-a-glance section, spelled out: make it in Arkansas, sell it in Arkansas. Out-of-state producers can’t use the Freedom Act to sell into Arkansas, and Arkansas producers shipping out of state need to check the destination state’s rules.

YOUR 3 STEPS TO START

  1. Confirm your products are homemade food — made by you, in your Arkansas home kitchen, not potentially hazardous (or otherwise within the Act). If it’s shelf-stable and you made it at home, you’re almost certainly in.
  2. Build the 5-disclosure label. Producer name and address, product name, ingredients with allergens named, net quantity, and the exact private-residence statement. Put it on the package for in-person sales and on the product page for online ones.
  3. Sell anywhere in Arkansas. Your kitchen table, farmers markets, your website with shipping, local grocery stores and restaurants. No registration, no cap, no in-state-only worry — just the label, done right, every time.

Keep exploring: see the Cottage Food Laws by State hub (https://cottagebakersupply.com/cottage-food-laws-by-state/) for every state’s rules, and the free tools page (https://cottagebakersupply.com/tools/) — the Cottage Label Generator and the Cottage Cost Calculator — built for home bakers.

OFFICIAL ARKANSAS SOURCES

This guide is for informational purposes only and isn’t legal advice. Cottage food laws change — I last verified this page on October 23, 2026. When in doubt, ask the Arkansas Department of Health.

Just add sprinkles!