Honey harvest
The jar needs a sentence the state wrote.
Florida honey has two sale paths. Bottling, Labeling, and Selling Honey in Florida is the UF/IFAS paper. Vu, Hagen, Gentry, Ellis, and Bammer. Revised February 2022. Commercial lots bottle in an inspected food establishment under an FDACS Division of Food Safety permit. Small lots can bottle in a home kitchen under cottage food, Section 500.80, Florida Statutes. This page is that split. It is not a permit desk.
Cottage food operations do not require a food permit from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and are not inspected by any state government entity.
Cottage food is a cap, not a loophole
Bottling, Labeling, and Selling Honey in Florida: beekeepers qualify if annual gross sales stay at or under $250,000, they can show FDACS that number in writing when asked, they store the honey on the cottage-food premises, they do not sell wholesale or on consignment, they label the jars, and they keep tax, traffic, parking, noise, signage, and hours rules. The cap is all cottage foods, not honey alone. Jam plus honey shares one $250,000 pile.
The 2021 Home Sweet Home Act still lets you sell from the house, a roadside stand, a farmers market, or a flea market. You may also take orders and payment on the internet or by mail. Delivery can go to the buyer, to an event venue, or by USPS or a commercial carrier, including interstate. Wholesale is the other path. Eight-ounce hex jars when you are actually bottling. Get this. A scale that reads ounces and grams. Net weight sits in the bottom 30 percent of the label. Get this.
Words that cost you a nutrition panel
Bottling, Labeling, and Selling Honey in Florida: skip health claims. Healthy, packed with energy, low in fat, good for allergies. Those pull a nutrition label. Certified, registered, or inspected only if an authorized entity actually did that. Organic is a USDA National Organic Program certification, not a synonym for natural. Pure, natural, and all natural before honey are acceptable. A floral source is fine if the honey is predominantly from that plant. Do not write pure orange blossom when the forage was mixed.
Honey is not one of the eight major federal allergens. Bottling, Labeling, and Selling Honey in Florida still recommends Do not feed to infants less than one year old. That infant line is recommended, not mandatory on the sample label. The full warning is on Do not put honey on a pacifier. Raw has no official standard in the paper. Buyers who ask for raw usually mean strained, not heated or filtered. Meet that expectation or do not print the word.
Past $250,000, or any wholesale or consignment lot, leaves cottage food. Bottling, Labeling, and Selling Honey in Florida: bottle in a permitted food establishment. Own the kitchen and apply for an FDACS food establishment permit. Lease a commissary and file the letter of agreement. Honey stores on the commissary, not at the house. Selling away from that kitchen needs a mobile food vendor license. Those labels must not carry the cottage-food sentence. Net contents then use both metric and US customary units.
Can I sell honey wholesale under cottage food?
No. Bottling, Labeling, and Selling Honey in Florida: do not sell, offer, or deliver cottage food for consignment or wholesale. Direct to the consumer.
Where does net weight go?
Bottom 30 percent of the label. Net.Wt. is an allowed abbreviation. Putting it at the top is the first common mistake Bottling, Labeling, and Selling Honey in Florida lists.
Sources
- Bottling, Labeling, and Selling Honey in Florida. Vu, Hagen, Gentry, Ellis, and Bammer. Revised February 2022.
- Section 500.80, Florida Statutes (2025). Cottage food operations. Gross sales cap. Required label sentence.
- Rule 5K-4.027, Standard Identity for Honey. What the word honey means on a Florida label.
- FDACS retail food establishment permit. The path once you leave cottage food.