Hawai'i's homemade-food exemption lets you sell non-hazardous baked goods, candies, jams, mochi, and hand-pounded poi from a home kitchen without a food-establishment permit, provided you get food-safety certification, label products, and sell directly to the consumer.
Under HAR 11-50-3(c), a food establishment that produces or packages only homemade food products in a home kitchen, or only produces hand-pounded poi, is exempt from the chapter's permit requirements. The operator must obtain food-safety certification (per 11-50-20(c)), label all food (per 11-50-35(c)), and distribute products only directly to the consumer. Allowed foods are non-potentially-hazardous items such as baked goods, candies, jams and jellies, non-TCS mochi, and poi. This is a State Department of Health rule; it applies island-wide and there is no separate county cottage-food license. Home food businesses still must satisfy the HCC 25-4-13 home occupation standards.
Selling foods outside the exemption, or without the required certification/labeling, removes the exemption and subjects the operation to DOH food-safety enforcement and penalties under HRS Chapter 321.
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