Ohio's Cottage Food Production Operation law is unusual among the six states covered on this site for having no gross annual sales cap at all — but it's just as specific as Texas or Michigan about the exact sentence that has to appear on the label, sourced directly from state statute and rule.
The exact statement Ohio law requires
Ohio Revised Code §3715.023 and the corresponding rule, Ohio Administrative Code 901:3-20-02, require every cottage food label to carry this statement in at least 10-point type:
"This product is home produced."
All required label text — not just the disclosure sentence — has to be legible and in English.
What else belongs on the label
Beyond the disclosure sentence, Ohio requires the product name; the net weight declared in both U.S. customary and International System (metric) units, similar to California's dual-unit rule; an ingredient list in descending order by weight; and the business name and address. Ohio law frames these requirements around a food being "misbranded" if the label is missing required information — a cottage food product that's produced and labeled correctly is explicitly exempt from Ohio's food-licensing and inspection requirements, but an improperly labeled one loses that protection.
No sales cap, no license — but the label still has legal teeth
Unlike Florida's $250,000 ceiling or Michigan's shifting limit, Ohio's cottage food law doesn't cap gross annual sales at all, and no license or permit from the Ohio Department of Agriculture is required to operate. That makes the label doubly important: since there's no inspection and no license number to fall back on, the label — with its exact disclosure sentence, ingredient list, net weight, and business information — is effectively the entire compliance record a customer, a health department, or a court sees for the product. Getting the statutory wording exactly right is the main thing standing between a compliant home business and a misbranding problem.
Common Ohio cottage foods
Ohio's approved list leans toward the same shelf-stable staples most cottage food laws cover: quick breads and yeast breads, cookies, cakes, brownies, fudge and other candies, jams and jellies, dried herbs and seasoning mixes, granola, and roasted nuts are all typical examples sold under the exemption. As in every state on this site, anything that needs refrigeration to stay safe generally falls outside the cottage food exemption — check Ohio's current approved-foods list before relying on it for a specific product.
Using the free generator for an Ohio label
Select Ohio in the generator on this site's homepage and it fills in your business name and address, product name, ingredients in descending order, net weight in both unit systems, and allergen line, then inserts the exact statutory disclosure sentence automatically, live in the preview, sized to satisfy the 10-point minimum. Print directly or save it as a PDF.
Required label elements at a glance
- Product name
- Net weight, in both U.S. and International System (metric) units
- Ingredient list, in descending order by weight
- Business name and address
- The exact disclosure statement (below), ≥10-point type
Minimum type size
At least 10-point type.
Sales cap
None — Ohio's Cottage Food Production Operation law has no gross-sales dollar limit.
Permit / registration
No license from the Ohio Department of Agriculture is required, and cottage food production operations are exempt from routine food-facility inspection and licensing.