Selling food you made at home in Illinois

Where you may sell

• Farmers markets and mobile farmers markets
• Fairs, festivals and public events
• Online
• Collection from your home or farm
• Delivery to the customer
• Collection from someone else's private property, with their permission

Posting it to customers: Shelf-stable food only, sealed so tampering shows. A cottage food product may not be shipped out of state.

Worth knowing

• You register with the local health department where you are, every year. Whoever prepares or packs the food must be a department-approved certified food protection manager.
• The label must say, word for word: "This product was produced in a home kitchen not inspected by a health department that may also process common food allergens. If you have safety concerns, contact your local health department."
• It must also carry your operation's name and your local authority, the registration number your health department gave you and the municipality or county you registered in, the usual name of the food, every ingredient, allergens to the federal standard, and the date you made it.
• Where people can see the food, a placard must say: "This product was produced in a home kitchen not inspected by a health department that may also process common food allergens." Online, that goes on the sales page at the point of sale.
• Out: meat, poultry, fish and shellfish; dairy and eggs beyond limited shelf-stable uses; pumpkin, sweet potato, cheesecake, custard and creme pies; garlic in oil unless acidified; low-acid canned food; sprouts; cut leafy greens; cut, pureed or dried tomato and melon; frozen cut melon; wild-harvested mushrooms; alcohol; and kombucha.
• Acidified means a final equilibrium pH of 4.6 or below with water activity above 0.85, or fermented down to that pH. Those foods need either a recipe tested by the USDA or a cooperative extension service, or a food safety plan filed every year with a pH test resubmitted every three.
• If your water comes from a private well, the local health department may require a water sample test.
• There is a second, much smaller route at 410 ILCS 625/3.6, the home kitchen operation: shelf-stable baked goods and high-acid fruit pies only, gross sales no more than $1,000 a month, and it only exists where your council has passed an ordinance allowing it.
• Home rule councils cannot set rules that conflict with the state. Your kitchen is not routinely inspected but can be over a complaint or an outbreak.

Where to actually sell it in Illinois

490 farmers markets and farm stands, which is one of the few places the rules above allow.

Markets in Illinois

Every state