Legal

This section covers Texas-specific legal and compliance basics for freeze-dried food businesses — cottage food law, state licensing through the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS), and labeling requirements. It's a starting point for understanding what applies at the state level. Under Texas cottage food law, home-based sales are capped at $150,000 a year, raised from $50,000 by Senate Bill 541, effective September 1, 2025. County and city rules vary, and it's your responsibility to confirm your own local requirements directly with your county and city — this section won't cover that level of detail. Start with the basics below, and check back — new posts get added regularly.

Our Food Manufacturer License post established that a Food Manufacturer License requires a commercial-grade facility — and that's usually the real cost of stepping up from cottage food. Here are three real paths people use to get there, each with a different tradeoff. 1. Build or convert your own space. The direct route: a dedicated, partitioned area or separate building meeting commercial standards. Full control, but the highest upfront cost. 2. Rent time in a shared-use (commissary) kitchen. An already-licensed commercial kitchen that rents out space and time to multiple small food businesses. Many producers bring their own equipment — including their own freeze dryer — rather than the facility providing it. You pay for access, not ownership. Texas has a growing number of these; searching "shared-use kitchen" or "commissary kitchen" near you is the place to start. 3. Use a toll processor (co-packing). You ship your raw product to a facility that handles the entire process for you — pre-freezing, freeze-drying, packaging — for a fee. No equipment or facility needed on your end at all. This only makes financial sense at real volume: some processors set minimums around 1,000 lbs per run, and pricing is typically quote-based rather than published. We haven't yet personally vetted specific Texas shared-use kitchens or toll processors to recommend by name — when we do, they'll be added to this post, vetted the same way we vet entries for Manufacturer Links.

Once you cross the $150,000 cottage food cap — or want to sell through channels cottage food doesn't cover — Texas requires a standard Food Manufacturer License from the Department of State Health Services (DSHS). The license fee itself is cheap. It's a sliding-scale fee based on your gross annual food sales, covering a 2-year license period: Under $10,000/year: $100 $10,000–$24,999: $150 $25,000–$99,999: $250 $100,000–$199,999: $560 $200,000–$999,999: $900 $1 million–$9.99 million: $1,120 $10 million+: $1,680 The real cost is usually the facility, not the fee. Texas does not allow licensed food manufacturing in any area used as living or sleeping quarters — your kitchen table doesn't qualify anymore. You'd need a space completely partitioned from the rest of your home (or a separate building) that meets commercial facility standards: dedicated handwashing stations, sealed doors and windows, surfaces that are easy to clean and moisture-resistant. DSHS inspects for this before issuing the license. For most people, building or renting that space costs far more than the license itself. What this license doesn't include: a private third-party safety certification. DSHS's inspection confirms your facility meets basic manufacturing standards — it's not the deeper, recurring audit (like SQF) that retail chains and big distributors often require before they'll carry your product. That's covered in our Food Safety section.

Most people starting a freeze-dried food business in Texas will begin here — as a cottage food production operation (producer), not a licensed manufacturer. Here's what that actually means. Who's the producer, who's the vendor. If you're the one drying and packaging the food yourself, you're the producer. A separate role exists — a cottage food vendor — for someone who didn't make the food but has a registered contract to resell a producer's product. That distinction matters because the two roles have different rules. The revenue cap. As a cottage food producer, you can earn up to $150,000 in gross annual revenue before you're required to step up to a full Food Manufacturer License. This was raised from $50,000 by Senate Bill 541, effective September 1, 2025 — a recent and significant change. How you're allowed to sell, direct. You can sell face-to-face (farmers markets, farm stands, or a location the buyer picks) and you can take orders online — but if you sell online, the law requires a real person (you, an employee, or a household member) to personally deliver it. No shipping carriers. This keeps cottage sales personal and local rather than functioning like a shipping business. Selling through a store, without becoming a manufacturer. As of September 1, 2025, there's a new wholesale path: you can sell to a registered cottage food vendor, who can then resell your product at a farmers market, farm stand, restaurant, or any retail store. This means a local shop can carry your product without you needing a full manufacturer license — as long as the vendor is properly registered and under contract with you, and the product doesn't require temperature control for safety (freeze-dried food generally qualifies). The label everyone forgets. Any cottage food product — sold directly or through a vendor — must disclose where it came from. The required wording: "THIS PRODUCT WAS PRODUCED IN A PRIVATE RESIDENCE THAT IS NOT SUBJECT TO GOVERNMENTAL LICENSING OR INSPECTION." Labels also need a production date. Cross the $150,000 cap, or want to sell outside these channels? That moves you into Food Manufacturer License territory — covered under our DSHS Licensing tag.