California MEHKO Home Kitchen Permit Law

Health and Safety Code Section 113825 defines a microenterprise home kitchen operation (MEHKO) as a food facility run by a resident out of a private home. To qualify, the operation can employ no more than one full-time equivalent food employee, not counting a family or household member, and every meal must be prepared, cooked, and served the same day, either eaten onsite or picked up or delivered within a safe window tied to the operation's holding equipment. Meal volume is capped at 30 individual meals a day and 90 a week; the local health department that enforces the program may lower that ceiling based on a kitchen's preparation capacity but Section 113825(a)(7) bars it from ever raising it.

Gross annual sales cannot exceed $100,000, adjusted each year for inflation under the California Consumer Price Index. Sales must go directly to consumers, not to wholesalers or retailers, though Section 113825(a)(9) treats an order placed through a listed internet food service intermediary's app or website as a direct sale. Certain foods and processes are off-limits outright: anything requiring a HACCP plan under Section 114419, raw milk or raw milk products, raw oysters, and the production, processing, or packaging of milk products such as cheese, ice cream, yogurt, sour cream, or butter.

Section 113825(b) also draws a hard line between a MEHKO, a catering operation, and a cottage food operation defined separately at Section 113758; a MEHKO permit does not cover any of those. Permitting itself is not automatic statewide. 6, Section 114367, requires the governing body of a city, county, or city and county acting as the local enforcement agency to affirmatively authorize MEHKOs by ordinance or resolution before residents there can be permitted at all; where a county opts in, that authorization reaches every city inside it regardless of whether the city separately adopts its own. Section 113825 was last amended by Stats. 6 itself traces to the original 2018 MEHKO law, AB 626.

Operating without the required county or city health permit, or beyond the statutory meal, revenue, or staffing caps, is enforced by the local environmental health department as an unpermitted food facility violation, which can bring a cease-and-desist order, civil penalties, and mandatory closure until the operator comes into compliance. Selling to a wholesaler or retailer instead of directly to consumers, or preparing a prohibited item such as raw oysters or a cheese or dairy product, voids MEHKO eligibility entirely and exposes the operator to standard California Retail Food Code enforcement, since the exemption in Section 113825 simply does not apply once those lines are crossed.