For producers
How to start selling your food in Oregon
Oregon is one of the most workable states in the country for a home food business. The requirements are real but short, and the mistake people make is not doing too little paperwork — it is not knowing which single piece of it the whole exemption hangs on.
Step one: the food handler card
Get it before anything else. ORS 616.723(2)(e) makes a current card a condition of the cottage food exemption. Without one you do not have an expired card — you have no exemption at all. It costs very little, takes under an hour online, and runs three years. Diary the expiry the day you get it.
Step two: know what the exemption covers
Cottage food is shelf-stable food made in a home kitchen: baked goods, jams and jellies, candies, dry mixes, granola, and similar. It does not cover anything requiring refrigeration for safety. If you are unsure whether your product is shelf-stable, that is a question for the Oregon Department of Agriculture, not for a forum.
Step three: the cap
$52,700 for 2026, inflation-indexed annually. Any guide quoting a fixed figure without a year is out of date. Track your gross, not your profit.
Step four: know who you may not sell to
ORS 616.723(3) puts institutions off limits: restaurants, caterers, schools, day cares, hospitals, nursing homes and correctional facilities. A cafe asking to stock your jam is not a cottage food sale.
Step five: label honestly
Your name, your address, the product, the ingredients in descending order by weight, allergens, net weight, and the statement that the food was made in a home kitchen not inspected by the Department of Agriculture. That last line is required and it is not a warning label — customers who buy from home kitchens are looking for exactly that.
When to get licensed
An ODA Domestic Kitchen licence removes the cap and the ambiguity: $179 a year for a bakery if your gross sales are under $50,000 (it steps up from there — $253 to $500,000, and on up to $950 above $10M), or a flat $223 for a processor. If you are within sight of the cap, or you want to sell to a cafe, or you want to make something that is not shelf-stable, the licence is a rounding error against what it unlocks.
Then the part nobody prepares for
Selling is not the hard bit. Being found is. A market stall reaches whoever walked past on a Saturday; a storefront reaches whoever is looking on a Tuesday night. Only Local Co. asks you for exactly the documents your category and state require — no more — and pauses your listings rather than letting them quietly go out of compliance when something expires.
People before profits. Commission is 5% to 20% by category, charged only on completed orders, and there is no monthly fee, no contract and no exclusivity.
A plain-language summary of published Oregon statute, not legal advice. Verified against the statute text on 17 August 2026. Your county or city may add requirements.