Wisconsin Cottage Food: $5,000 Pickle Bill Cap, Baked Goods by Court Order

The statutory exemption is the Pickle Bill, codified at Wis. Stat. § 97.29(2)(b)2. It applies to food products a person prepares and cans at home in Wisconsin, and every one of five conditions has to be met. The product must be pickles or other processed vegetables or fruits with an equilibrium pH value of 4.6 or lower, which is what keeps the jar out of the botulism risk range. Sales must happen at a community or social event or a farmers market in this state, so a Wisconsin home canner cannot ship, sell online, or wholesale to a shop under this exemption. Annual receipts from those sales must stay under $5,000. A sign at the point of sale must read "These canned goods are homemade and not subject to state inspection." Each container must carry the canner name and address, the date the product was canned, the statement "This product was made in a private home not subject to state licensing or inspection.", and a full ingredient list in descending order of prominence, with the common name spelled out for any ingredient from milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, wheat, peanuts or soybeans.

Baked goods sit outside the statute entirely, and the honest answer is that a court judgment is doing the work. In Kivirist v. DATCP, No. 16-CV-06 (Wis. Cir. Ct. Lafayette Cty. May 31, 2017), the circuit court held that applying Wisconsin food licensing law to home bakers of shelf-stable goods failed rational basis review on both substantive due process and equal protection grounds, and enjoined enforcement against the plaintiffs. Orders on September 29 and October 2, 2017 extended the injunction beyond the named plaintiffs to anyone selling nonhazardous shelf-stable baked goods where the bakers are of good character and the hygiene of their kitchens is not in question. The Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection did not appeal, so as the Legislative Council put it in its June 2025 issue brief on Wisconsin cottage food law, that decision remains good law. There is still no cottage food statute in Wisconsin covering baked goods, no registration, no permit number and no state-set sales cap for them.

The 2022 attempt to widen the ruling failed. In Wisconsin Cottage Food Association v. DATCP the same plaintiffs plus additional home bakers argued that licensing was equally unconstitutional as applied to unbaked homemade items such as chocolates, fudge, rice cereal treats and candies. The Lafayette County Circuit Court agreed on December 28, 2022, DATCP appealed, the Court of Appeals stayed that order on May 30, 2023, and on November 19, 2024 the Court of Appeals reversed it in Wisconsin Cottage Food Association v. DATCP, 2024 WI App 69, holding that the licensing laws are constitutional as applied to unbaked goods because the classification rests on substantial distinctions and is rationally related to food safety and consumer welfare. The Wisconsin Supreme Court denied the petition for review. The practical result: a Wisconsin home kitchen may sell cookies, breads and pies without a license, but selling homemade fudge or dipped chocolates requires a food processing plant license under § 97.29 or a retail food establishment license under § 97.30.

DATCP defines the boundary tightly on its own licensing page. Baked goods are items exposed to dry heat transferred by air at a temperature above 140 degrees Fahrenheit inside a closed chamber such as an oven, which the department notes exceeds the danger zone in which pathogenic microorganisms grow. Items made in a waffle maker or a Dutch oven count. Items dried in a dehydrator do not. The finished, ready-for-sale product must be not potentially hazardous as that term is defined in Wis. Stat. §§ 97.29(1)(dm) and 97.30(1)(bm), so cheesecake, cream-filled pastry and anything needing refrigeration falls outside the court orders. The orders also reach direct sales to consumers only. A Wisconsin home baker who starts wholesaling to a coffee shop or grocery needs a license.

Several smaller carve-outs sit alongside these. A place used solely for producing and packaging maple syrup or concentrated maple sap sold directly to consumers or to a licensed plant is exempt if those sales do not exceed $5,000 in a 12-month period under § 97.29(1)(h)12. Beekeepers extracting honey and selling raw honey or raw bee products are exempt under § 97.29(1)(h)8., and a retail food establishment primarily selling honey, cider, sorghum or maple syrup produced by its own operator is exempt under Wis. Admin. Code § ATCP 75.063(5). A stand operated by a minor, as defined in Wis. Stat. § 66.0416(1)(b), is written out of both the food processing plant definition in § 97.29(1)(h)12m. and the retail food establishment definition in § 97.30(1)(c). Religious, charitable and nonprofit organizations may sell occasionally without a license, and Wis. Admin. Code § ATCP 75.04(28) defines occasional as not more than 12 days for non-meal food sales and not more than 3 days for meal food sales in a licensing year.

Selling home-produced food outside these limits is unlicensed operation under Wis. ch. 41, enforce it. 12(2) lets an inspector issue a holding order freezing the sale or movement of suspect food for up to 14 days, renewable once. 72(2) allows a forfeiture of up to $1,000 per violation instead of criminal charges. 73 lets DATCP seek a temporary or permanent injunction. 30(3)(c) of $100 or twice the annual license fee, whichever is less. A home canner who exceeds the $5,000 Pickle Bill ceiling, sells acidified jars outside a farmers market or community event, or omits the required sign or label loses the exemption and is treated as an unlicensed food processing plant.