• You can sell home-canned fruits and vegetables that are naturally acidic or have been acidified by pickling or fermenting.
• These products have an equilibrium pH of 4.6 or lower, meaning that they are high in acid.
• Examples of allowable products:
  • pickled fruits and vegetables (not refrigerator pickles)
  • salsas and chutneys
  • sauerkraut and kimchi
  • jams and jellies
  • applesauce

Not sure if your product can be sold without a license?
Contact University of Wisconsin Extension: 608-263-7383 or Barbara Ingham
Wisconsin Dept of Agriculture, Trade & Consumer Protection: 608-224-4682

• You can not sell low-acid home-canned foods such as vegetables, fish and meat
• You can not sell sauces, dressings or condiments unless they are clearly fruit or vegetable products
• You can not sell home-canned foods that are not considered fruits or vegetables such as pickled eggs, lemon curd, and pesto
• You can not sell product made outside your home, such as in a restaurant or a shared kitchen.

• Sales of no more than $5,000 per household per year. The $5,000 exemption applies per farm/family, not per individual.
• Retail sales only (direct from producer to consumer) and only in Wisconsin. No internet sales.
• Sales only at community or social events or farmers’ markets. These events include town celebrations, sporadic church or service club bazaars, and scheduled farmers’ markets. Events where sales may not take place include for-profit events, craft shows, traveling circuses or carnivals, high school sporting or fund-raising events, and regularly occurring licensed food-sales events such as a church’s Friday-night fish fry. A farmer may not put up a roadside stand and sell product under the ‘Pickle Bill,’ farmers may only sell through recognized farmers’ markets.

• Post a sign at your stand or booth: “These products are homemade in a kitchen that has not been subject to state inspection.”
• Label each jar:
  • Name and address of the person who did the canning
  • Date of canning
  • Ingredients (in descending amount)
  • Statement: This product was made in a home not subject to state licensing or inspection.

• A great way to help ensure the safety of the product that you sell is to follow a research-tested recipe. Excellent sources of approved recipes are:
  • Ball Blue Book (1994 or more current only)
  • Ball web site
  • National Center for Home Food Preservation
  • University of Wisconsin Extension

Questions about recipes? Contact your local UW Extension office or contact Barbara Ingham (Extension specialist) 608-263-7383 or email Barbara Ingham at bhingham@wisc.edu.

• Under the new law, there can be no sales:
  • Out of your home
  • Wholesale (resale by someone else)
  • On consignment
  • Via the internet OR out of state
  • Of exempt foods (pickle bill products) along with licensed foods