How to label your product to sell
Seller-focused guides with a sample label for each product: what the ingredient statement should look like, which allergens apply, and when you'll need a Nutrition Facts panel.
Bakery
Banana Bread
Banana bread is one of the most popular cottage-food products in the US, and one of the easiest to label wrong, because bananas shift the ingredient order and walnuts trigger a tree-nut declaration.
Bakery
Cookies
Cookies are the #1 cottage-food product. The labeling traps: sub-ingredient allergens hiding in chocolate chips, and serving sizes that don't match the 30 g cookie RACC.
Bakery
Sourdough Bread
Sourdough microbakeries are booming, and their labels are refreshingly simple (flour, water, salt) until you add inclusions or sell at retail.
Preserves
Jam & Preserves
Jam labels look simple but sit under two extra rule sets: the federal standard of identity for what may be called “jam” or “preserves” (21 CFR 150), and state cottage rules that nearly always allow high-acid preserves.
Sauces
Salsa
Fresh salsa is a cottage-food gray zone: many states prohibit it as a home product because fresh salsa is a refrigerated, potentially hazardous (TCS) food, while shelf-stable acidified salsa is a licensed-kitchen product in most of the country.
Snacks
Granola
Granola makers hit the Nutrition Facts wall early: it's a product people scale into cafés and grocers fast, and one where “healthy”-sounding claims quietly create legal obligations.
Bakery
Brownies
Brownies are a cottage-food staple with a short label, but chocolate brings soy lecithin, and frosted or cream-cheese versions can cross into not-allowed territory in some states.
Sauces
Hot Sauce
Hot sauce is the classic “graduation product”: rarely allowed as cottage food (it's acidified), so most makers start in a commercial kitchen with process approval, and retail buyers expect a full label from day one.