Montana Cottage Food: $40 County Registration, Approved Product List, Water Test

Montana runs two separate homemade food routes and they are governed by different chapters. This page is the cottage food route in Title 50, chapter 50, which covers shelf-stable packaged goods and requires registration. The Local Food Choice Act in Title 50, chapter 49, part 2, is the other route and covers homemade food sold directly to an informed end consumer with no licence at all. Choosing between them changes what you may make and how you may sell it.

Section 50-50-116(1) frames the cottage food exemption as a status you acquire rather than a permit you hold: to acquire the status of not being a retail food establishment, the operation must meet the conditions of the section and register with a local health authority under § 50-50-117. Subsection (7) then delivers the payoff: an operation meeting the requirements is not a retail food establishment or a wholesale food establishment and is not subject to licensure or inspection requirements under Title 50, chapter 57, or chapter 50. Section 50-50-301(3)(a) reinforces that a cottage food operation is not subject to the annual retail inspection unless a state or local health officer is investigating a complaint based on an illness or outbreak suspected to be directly related to cottage food products, and subsection (3)(b) lets an operator request and pay for a voluntary inspection.

The product boundary is set by definition, not by a sales cap. Montana imposes no annual gross sales limit on cottage food at all, which distinguishes it from most states. Instead § 50-50-102(4) defines cottage food products as foods that are not potentially hazardous, and § 50-50-102(19) defines potentially hazardous food as food requiring time and temperature control for safety. ARM 37.110.503 then lists what the department has approved: oven-baked loaf breads, rolls, biscuits, quick breads, muffins, cakes including wedding and celebration cakes, pastries, scones, cookies, bars, crackers, cereals, trail mixes, granola, nuts, nut mixes and snack mixes; pies except custard-style pies, pies with unbaked fresh fruit, and pies needing refrigeration after baking; standardized jams, jellies, preserves and fruit butters under 21 CFR part 150; dried fruit or vegetables; dry herb, seasoning and mix packaging such as bean soup mixes, teas and coffees; popcorn, popcorn balls and cotton candy; fudge, candies and confections that require a cook step; molded chocolate from commercial melts; and honey. Paraffin wax may not be used to seal jars, containers must be sterilized before filling, and freezer or refrigerator-style jams are not approved. Home-dried fruit must reach 160 degrees Fahrenheit within an hour and hold 140 degrees for the rest of the drying process, and may not be packaged by any reduced-oxygen method including vacuum packing. Other products may be approved case by case by the department in consultation with the county's local health department.

How you may sell is as tightly drawn as what you may sell. Section 50-50-102(6) defines direct sale as a face-to-face purchase or exchange between the maker and a consumer or an individual buying the product as a gift, and says the direct sale may not be by consignment or involve shipping or internet sales. Section 50-50-116(3) repeats the consignment prohibition, including consignment through a retail or wholesale establishment. Section 50-50-116(4) requires processing and packaging to happen in the specific registered area of the domestic residence, and subsection (5) allows storage only in that registered area or temporarily in a motor vehicle used to transport the products. A domestic residence under § 50-50-102(7) may be a single-family house or a unit in a multiunit building, rented, leased or owned.

Registration is handled locally and priced by rule. Section 50-50-117(1) requires the person in charge to register with the local health authority in the county where the residence is located, and subsections (2)(a) through (2)(e) require the operation's name, the physical address, a brief description of expected or known ingredient sources, a complete list of products, and a copy of each product label. ARM 37.110.511 adds the operational detail: a $40 fee paid to the county, a detailed description of the manufacturing process including equipment and utensils, sewage disposal through a public treatment plant or a lawfully operated individual system, and each recipe filed with the application and kept on site. Ingredient lists are subject to public disclosure but recipes are proprietary and are not. If the home is on a private well, the applicant must show nitrates below 10 mg/L from a sample within the last 12 months and total coliforms absent from a sample within the last 6 months, and registration is withheld until those standards are met. Once registered, an operator may sell the registered products anywhere in Montana, but must register and pay again to change location or to add a product, and the rule treats a recipe change that adds an allergen or makes a product potentially hazardous as a new product. A department-approved certificate of registration is issued and must be available to the local health authority on request while vending to the public.

Enforcement is shared. Section 50-50-116(6)(a) makes a cottage food operation subject to local health authority or state enforcement action for violations of applicable department regulations, and subsection (6)(b) warns that the products may still be subject to other state or federal laws. 513(2) routes violations of the cottage food subchapter into Title 50, chapter 50, part 1, and the money penalty there is § 50-50-109(1): a retail food establishment or a cottage food operation that violates the chapter or the department's rules is subject to a civil penalty not to exceed $500.

Section 50-50-109(2) preserves injunctions to compel compliance alongside the penalty, and under § 50-50-110 a court may, on the regulatory authority's petition, order an operation found in violation in a willful case to pay the direct costs of investigation and other enforcement expenses. 514 requires an operator to furnish product or ingredient samples for analysis on request when the food is suspected of being associated with an illness or outbreak. If a local health authority refuses to register an operation, § 50-50-117(5) applies the appeal machinery of § 50-50-215 and requires written notification to the applicant.

A tribal government may instead reach an agreement with the department under § 50-1-106 to coordinate registration under tribal regulation, and where no cooperative agreement exists § 50-50-117(8) lets the operator register directly with the department.