How Act 1040 replaced Arkansas cottage food law

2017: a short list and short fences

The Cottage Food Act, Act 399 of 2017, defined a cottage food production operation narrowly: bakery products, candy, fruit butter, jams, jellies, chocolate-covered uncut fruit, and similar products the Department of Health specified by rule.

Its fences were as short as its list. The Act let a cottage food operation sell direct to the consumer from the site of production, at a farmers market, at a county fair, at a special event, or from a pop-up shop inside another business.

That was the world Arkansas home producers worked in until 2021: a specific product list, a specific venue list, and a label that said, in 10-point type, "This Product is Home-Produced."

Arkansas Code § 20-57-201 defines a cottage food operation as a person producing non-potentially-hazardous food at home: bakery products, candy, fruit butter, jams and jellies. — Arkansas General Assembly (Act 1040 of 2021), retrieved 2026-09-29

Arkansas Code § 20-57-201 lets a cottage food operation sell direct to the consumer at the production site, a farmers market, a county fair, a special event or a pop-up shop. — Arkansas General Assembly (Act 1040 of 2021), retrieved 2026-09-29

2021: the Food Freedom Act's three widenings

Act 1040 of 2021 created the Food Freedom Act as a new subchapter, Arkansas Code § 20-57-501 et seq., and widened the trade in three directions at once.

Products first: the definition moved from a short list to a food-safety test, non-TCS food, with pickled cucumbers and acidified vegetables included under the pH condition. Venues second: direct sales anywhere in Arkansas to an informed end consumer, including online, by telephone, and through third-party vendors like grocery stores. Channels third: delivery by the producer, an agent, a third-party vendor or a common carrier.

The old Cottage Food Act's framework was repealed rather than amended: the statute's own Cottage Food definition survives only as one of the exemptions in the food service establishment rules, folded in under the Food Freedom Act's citation.

Arkansas Code § 20-57-501 et seq.Act 1040 of 2021 created the Food Freedom Act as Arkansas Code Title 20, Chapter 57, Subchapter 5, §§ 20-57-501 through 20-57-507. — Arkansas General Assembly (Act 1040 of 2021), retrieved 2026-09-29

Act 399 of 2017The Arkansas Department of Health states Act 1040 of 2021 replaced the Cottage Food Act (Act 399 of 2017), expanding allowed items to Homemade Non-TCS Food sold direct to an informed end consumer. — Arkansas Department of Health, retrieved 2026-09-29

The label changed shape with the law

The Cottage Food Act's label asked for four things: business name and address, product name, ingredients, and the "This Product is Home-Produced" statement in 10-point type. Nutritional claims were barred outright.

The Food Freedom Act's disclosure asks for five: the production date, the producer's name, address and phone, the product's common name, the ingredients in descending order, and the new statement, "This product was produced in a private residence that is exempt from state licensing and inspection. This product may contain allergens."

The allergen sentence is the real content of the change. The old label told the buyer where the food came from. The new label tells them what regulatory absence they are buying into, and what the food may contain. The full label rules are on the labeling page.

Arkansas Code § 20-57-505(a) requires the production date, the producer's name, address and phone, the product's name, the ingredients in descending order, and the private-residence statement. — Arkansas General Assembly (Act 1040 of 2021), retrieved 2026-09-29

What the Act kept from the cottage food world

The Food Freedom Act kept the direct-to-consumer spine. Whatever else widened, the informed end consumer rule stands where the Cottage Food Act's consumer-direct rule stood: no resales, no wholesale, and no use within food service establishments.

It also kept the farmers market as a named venue, and the raw produce and honey exemptions alongside the new homemade food exemption, folding maple syrup, sorghum and beekeepers into the same subchapter's exemptions.

What it did not keep was the pop-up shop's special regime: the old Act's § 20-57-209 pop-up inspection rules were repealed outright by Act 1040, which is worth knowing if a lease or a market agreement still cites the old section numbers. The current rules are the Food Freedom Act's, and this site's pages follow them.

Act 1040 of 2021 repealed Arkansas Code § 20-57-209, concerning pop-up shop inspections and restrictions for cottage food production operations. — Arkansas General Assembly (Act 1040 of 2021), retrieved 2026-09-29

Arkansas Code § 20-57-506(a) provides that a homemade food or drink product shall not be sold or used in any food service establishment. — Arkansas General Assembly (Act 1040 of 2021), retrieved 2026-09-29

The amendments since: dairy, raw milk and the grocery tax

Two later acts moved the edges. Act 698 of 2025 rewrote Arkansas Code § 20-59-248 on raw milk and raw milk products, allowing sales at farmers markets, natural food stores and by delivery from the farm, with its own warning label and refrigeration rules.

The Department of Health's guide is explicit on the dairy line: dairy products are not allowed under the Food Freedom Act, per Act 698 of 2025, which governs them in their own channel instead.

The third change is not a food law but lands in every producer's till: the Grocery Tax Relief Act, Act 1008 of 2025, exempted food and food ingredients from state sales and use tax from January 1, 2026, leaving local taxes in place, per the tax page. A rule-change page on this site's tax is the one worth reading after this one.

Arkansas Code § 20-59-248Act 698 of 2025 amended Arkansas Code § 20-59-248 to allow raw milk and raw milk product sales at the farm, at farmers markets, at natural food stores, and by delivery from the farm. — Arkansas General Assembly (Act 698 of 2025), retrieved 2026-09-29

Act 698 of 2025 amended Arkansas Code § 20-59-248 to allow raw milk and raw milk product sales at the farm, at farmers markets, at natural food stores, and by delivery from the farm. — Arkansas Department of Health, retrieved 2026-09-29

January 1, 2026Arkansas's Grocery Tax Relief Act, Act 1008 of 2025, exempts food and food ingredients from state sales and use tax from January 1, 2026, while municipal and county grocery taxes continue. — Arkansas General Assembly (Act 1008 of 2025), retrieved 2026-09-29

Reading the change as a producer

The direction of travel is one-way: wider, not narrower, and every widening has come with a disclosure rather than a fee. That is the pattern of five years of Arkansas homemade food law, and it is the honest prior for reading the next session's bills.

What has never moved is the food-safety spine. The non-TCS test survived both acts, the dairy bar survived the raw milk amendments, and the restaurant bar stands in the 2026 guide exactly where it stood in 2017's rules.

The practical reading for a producer is therefore stability where it matters and movement where it helps: product tests on the allowed-foods page move only with food-safety science, while channels and taxes on the market, online and tax pages move with the session. Re-check the guide's date before treating any figure here as current, because the Department reissues it when the law does.

May 21, 2026The Arkansas Department of Health's Homemade Food Production Guide is dated May 21, 2026. — Arkansas Department of Health, retrieved 2026-09-29

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