Arkansas Food Freedom Act: No Permit, No Inspection, and No Sales Cap

Arkansas did not amend its cottage food law in 2021, it replaced it. Section 1 of Act 1040 struck the definition of "cottage food production operation" out of A.C.A. § 20-57-201 entirely, section 2 repealed § 20-57-209, and section 3 added a new Subchapter 5 to Chapter 57 called the Food Freedom Act. The statutory term today is not cottage food but "homemade food or drink product", defined in § 20-57-503(3) as a product processed at the private residence of the producer, including a farm or ranch where the producer resides, that is exempt from state licensure, inspection, certification and packaging and labeling requirements, and that is non-time/temperature control for safety food.

There is no revenue cap. Read §§ 20-57-501 through 20-57-507 end to end and no dollar figure appears anywhere: no gross sales ceiling, no CPI adjustment, no threshold at which a producer must move to a licensed kitchen. Nor is there a registration step, a fee, a recipe approval, a kitchen inspection, a water test or a food handler card. Section 20-57-504(a) states the exemption in one sentence and attaches no precondition beyond compliance with the subchapter.

The boundary is drawn by food type instead. Section 20-57-504(b)(3) says a transaction shall not involve the sale of meat, poultry, seafood, or time/temperature control for safety food products. Section 20-57-503(8) defines that last category as food requiring time or temperature control to limit pathogen growth or toxin formation, and lists animal food that is raw or heat treated, food of plant origin that is heat treated or consists of raw seed sprouts, cut leafy greens, cut tomatoes or mixtures of cut tomatoes, and garlic-in-oil mixtures. So Arkansas breads, cookies, cakes, candies, jams, jellies, granola and dry mixes qualify; cheesecake, cream-filled pastry, jerky, canned green beans and bottled garlic oil do not.

One acidified route is spelled out. Section 20-57-503(5)(B) brings pickled cucumbers and other acidified vegetables inside the non-TCS definition where the finished product has an equilibrium pH value of 4.6 or less, provided the recipe comes from a source approved by the Department of Health or has been tested by an appropriately certified laboratory. If the recipe is not from one of those sources, the producer must test every batch with a calibrated pH meter, label the batch with a unique number, and keep records of the batch number, the recipe, the source of the recipe or the testing results, and the date the batch was prepared.

The selling rules are unusually wide. Under § 20-57-504(b)(1) the transaction must be directly between the seller and the informed end consumer, but the seller may be the producer, an agent of the producer, or a third-party vendor including a retail shop or grocery store. Section 20-57-503(9) defines a transaction to include exchanges made in person, by telephone and online, and § 20-57-504(b)(4) allows delivery by the producer, an agent, a third-party vendor or a third-party carrier, so shipping is permitted. Section 20-57-504(b)(2) even allows the sale to occur in another state if the seller complies with all applicable federal laws. Section 20-57-506(b) locates the sale at a retail space at the ranch, farm, home or office where the product is made, or at a third-party vendor's retail location, and § 20-57-506(c) requires a seller operating alongside licensed food to keep the homemade items separate.

The one flat prohibition is § 20-57-506(a): a homemade food or drink product shall not be sold or used in any food service establishment. A restaurant cannot buy your pies to serve, and you cannot supply a caterer.

Labeling is where an Arkansas producer actually has work to do. Section 20-57-505(a) requires five items and a fixed sentence, and § 20-57-505(b) dictates the medium: a label on the package, or on the container plus a separate written document at sale for bulk goods; a placard at the point of sale for unpackaged goods; and the website itself where the product is offered online. Producers worried about publishing a home address may request an identification number from the Department of Agriculture and use that in place of name, address and telephone number.

Local governments are cut out. Section 20-57-507(b) preempts county, municipal and other political subdivision jurisdictions from prohibiting and regulating the production and sale of homemade food or drink products, so a city ordinance cannot add a permit, a zoning condition or a fee. What survives is state and federal oversight of safety: § 20-57-507(a)(1) preserves the Department of Health's power to investigate foodborne illness, and § 20-57-507(a)(7) preserves its authority to act against adulterated or misbranded food under the Arkansas Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, § 20-56-201 et seq. Tax law, hunting and fishing law, and federal law all continue to apply under § 20-57-507(a)(6).

The Food Freedom Act carries no penalty section of its own, and that is the point: it works by removing a product from the licensing scheme rather than by creating a new offence. The consequence of stepping outside it is that the exemption stops applying. A producer who sells jerky, a cheesecake or home-canned low-acid vegetables is selling a time/temperature control for safety food or a meat product, which § 20-57-504(b)(3) excludes, so the operation reverts to being a food service establishment under § 20-57-201(1)(A)(i) and needs the permit required by § 20-57-204(a).

Selling homemade product into a restaurant breaches § 20-57-506(a) directly. , and the labeling duties in § 20-57-505 are a condition of the exemption rather than an optional courtesy, so an unlabeled product is an unexempt product.