Everything you need to sell home-made food in Mississippi — legally, confidently, and profitably. No permit required to get started.
Mississippi's cottage food program — formally the Regulation of Cottage Food Operations under Miss. Code Ann. § 75-29-951 — is one of the more accessible frameworks in the South. The law was originally passed in 2013 (SB 2553) and updated in 2020 (HB 326) to raise the sales cap and explicitly allow online and social media advertising. It is administered by the Mississippi State Department of Health (MSDH) Food Protection Division.
If your annual gross sales stay under $35,000, you are completely exempt from the food establishment permit requirements that apply to commercial food businesses. That means no application, no fee, and no routine inspections. The MSDH can only inspect your home kitchen if a formal complaint is filed against your operation. You simply make food, label it correctly, and sell it directly to customers.
Mississippi only allows direct sales within the state — meaning you sell in person, directly to the final buyer. You may sell from your home, at farmers markets, county and municipal fairs, roadside stands, and similar events. You may advertise and market your products online, including on social media, but you cannot complete a sales transaction over the internet. Out-of-state shipping is also prohibited. If your business grows beyond the $35,000 cap, you'll need to obtain a food establishment permit from MSDH and operate under a different regulatory framework.
A 2025 bill proposed raising Mississippi's annual sales cap from $35,000 to $59,000 and adding a requirement for ANAB-accredited food handler training before selling. The status of this bill was not confirmed at the time this guide was published. Always verify current requirements with the MSDH Food Protection Division before relying on this guide.
Each section below covers a specific part of selling home-made food in Mississippi. Start with what you plan to sell, then work through permits and labeling before your first sale.
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Create Free Account to Use This Tool →Mississippi sits at one of America's most consequential culinary crossroads. Long before European contact, the Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Natchez peoples built sophisticated food systems rooted in the land — corn ground into meal, wild game, river fish, native beans, and gathered persimmons. These traditions laid the agricultural and culinary groundwork for everything that followed.
The state's most singular food creation is the Delta hot tamale — smaller, more heavily spiced, made with cornmeal instead of masa, and boiled rather than steamed. Its origins are debated: some credit Mexican migrant cotton workers in the early 1900s; others point to Native American corn traditions; still others argue for Sicilian and African American fusion. What's certain is that the food is inseparable from the Delta's identity. The Southern Foodways Alliance created a dedicated Hot Tamale Trail in 2005, and Greenville calls itself the Hot Tamale Capital of the World, hosting the annual Delta Hot Tamale Festival. Landmark vendors like Doe's Eat Place (est. 1941), Solly's Hot Tamales (est. 1939), and the Big Apple Inn in Jackson have kept these traditions alive for generations.
Mississippi is also the nation's leading producer of farm-raised catfish, and has a long heritage of home jam-making — muscadine and fig preserves, mayhaw jelly from the native hawthorn berry, and sweet potato confections that trace back centuries. Pecans from the southern part of the state feed a thriving tradition of pies, pralines, and brittles. Craig Claiborne, born in Sunflower, Mississippi, became the food editor of the New York Times in 1957 and spent decades introducing America to new flavors — cementing Mississippi as a state that punches far above its weight in American culinary influence.
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