How to Sell Food From Home in Georgia (2026 Guide)

Georgia is a fantastic place to sell food from home — Atlanta alone is one of the most exciting food cities in the country, from soul food and peach cobbler to a booming West African and Caribbean scene. But Georgia runs its cottage food program a little more formally than states like Texas or Florida: here, you get an actual Cottage Food License, your labels get approved, and the state has historically inspected your home kitchen before you start. It's a few more steps — but it's also a stamp of legitimacy that customers trust. Here's the whole process.

For the national picture, see our complete guide to selling food from home. To compare Georgia's more formal approach with the hands-off model elsewhere, read our Florida and Texas guides.

1. Georgia's Cottage Food Program

Georgia's cottage food program is run by the Georgia Department of Agriculture. The defining feature, compared with most states, is that Georgia treats home food sellers with a light version of the same licensing it uses for food businesses: you apply for a Cottage Food License, you get your labels reviewed, and you operate under a defined list of approved foods.

Georgia has updated these rules over the past few years — including opening up internet sales and shipping within the state — so treat this guide as your roadmap and confirm the current fees, inspection requirement, and any limits directly with the Georgia Department of Agriculture before you launch. The structure below reflects how the program has generally worked.

2. The License & Kitchen Inspection

This is where Georgia differs most from its neighbors. To sell cottage foods you need a Cottage Food License issued by the Department of Agriculture — it's not a free self-certification like Florida's or a simple food-handler card like Texas's.

• Application: You submit an application listing the specific products you intend to sell.
• Label approval: Your product labels are reviewed against the state's requirements before you sell.
• Home kitchen inspection: Georgia has historically required a one-time inspection of your home kitchen — checking sanitation, storage, and water source. Many states skip this entirely, so it's the biggest extra step in Georgia.
• License fee: There is a license fee (commonly cited around $100). Confirm the current amount with the Department.

It sounds like more work, and it is — but it's still a tiny fraction of what a restaurant or even a food truck costs, and the inspection is a one-time hurdle, not an ongoing burden for most sellers.

3. What You Can & Can't Sell

As with every cottage food law, the line is shelf-stable, non-potentially-hazardous foods only.

What you CAN sell:

• Baked goods: Breads, biscuits, pound cake, cookies, brownies, pies with non-perishable fillings (think peach hand pies, sweet potato pie made to be shelf-stable per the rules)
• Candies & confections: Pralines, fudge, brittle, divinity
• Jams, jellies, preserves; honey; sorghum syrup
• Granola, cereals, dried mixes, roasted nuts, popcorn, dried herbs and spice blends

What you CANNOT sell:

• Anything refrigerated: Cheesecake, banana pudding, cream pies, custards
• Cooked meat & perishable plates: Soul food dinners, fried chicken plates, BBQ, oxtails, mac and cheese sold ready-to-eat
• Dairy, fresh juices, and low-acid canned goods

4. Label Approval & Requirements

Because Georgia reviews labels up front, get them right the first time. Expect to include:

1. Your business name and address
2. The product name
3. Ingredients in descending order by weight
4. Major allergens (milk, eggs, wheat, soy, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, sesame)
5. Net weight or volume
6. A cottage-food statement indicating the product was made in a home kitchen not subject to full state food-establishment inspection, in the wording the Department specifies

Since the Department approves your labels, ask them for the exact required statement when you apply so there are no back-and-forth delays.

5. Selling Online & Shipping

Georgia's recent updates opened the door to internet sales and shipping of approved cottage foods within the state. That makes a real online business viable: list your menu, take orders from across metro Atlanta or statewide, and fulfill by pickup, local delivery, or in-state shipping. Confirm the current online-sales rules with the Department, then let a platform handle the ordering and money.

6. Soul Food, BBQ & Cooked Meals

Atlanta's heart is in its cooked food — the Sunday soul food plate, the smoked ribs, the jollof and the jerk. But like most states, Georgia's cottage food license does not cover cooked, perishable meals. There's no home-restaurant law here.

To sell cooked plates legally, the path is a licensed commercial or commissary kitchen (plenty of options around Atlanta you can rent by the hour) or a catering license. A common move: build a following with shelf-stable cottage goods and weekend baked-goods drops, then reinvest into commissary time to add cooked plates. Our guide on testing a food business before you invest shows how.

7. How to Get Licensed, Step by Step

1. Decide your products. Pick approved, shelf-stable items you make well.
2. Prepare your labels. Build compliant labels for each product (Section 4).
3. Apply for the Cottage Food License with the Georgia Department of Agriculture, listing your products.
4. Pass the home kitchen inspection if required — clean surfaces, proper storage, safe water source.
5. Pay the license fee and receive your license.
6. Check local rules — a city/county business license or DBA may apply in Atlanta, Savannah, or wherever you operate.
7. Open a free Chefry storefront and start taking orders.

8. Getting Paid: How Chefry's Pricing Works

Hot take time, because it matters most once you're legal and selling: the way most Georgia cooks collect money is bleeding them. Pound cakes and peach cobblers sold through a Facebook group mean DMs, screenshots, and CashApp requests that go unpaid. And the big delivery apps that promise to organize it quietly skim 20–30% off every order.

Chefry is built to keep the money with the cook. The honest breakdown:

• 0% platform fee on plate & menu orders — you keep 100% of your food price.
• The customer pays a small 5% service fee at checkout — not taken from you.
• Standard Stripe processing (2.9% + 30¢) — the same rate everyone pays.
• $0/month, free forever.
• Daily payouts with instant cash-out to your debit card.
• Founding 100 chefs pay 0% on everything — including catering — for your first year (then standard rates).

See the full pricing breakdown.

9. How Chefry Helps Georgia Cooks

Once you're licensed, Chefry gives you the business side, free:

• A storefront with your menu, photos, and prices — customers order directly.
• Payments handled up front, so you stop chasing money.
• Preorders & weekend drops with caps and prepaid orders — see the preorder guide.
• Discovery across Atlanta, Savannah, Augusta, and Athens when locals search for home food sellers.
• One dashboard for orders, capacity, and pickup windows.

Frequently Asked Questions

Cooking in another state? Read our guides for California, Texas, Florida, New York, and Arizona.