When you are deciding to sell honey, there are 5 areas of jurisdiction you need to comply with:
- Texas Department of State Health Services – to sell honey as food in Texas, you will need to follow the rules for and obtain a food manufacturing licenses.
- FDA Food Facility Registration (only if selling wholesale and engaging in interstate commerce)
- FDA Food Labeling
- Local Health Department Guidelines, if applicable
- Homeowner or Deed Restrictions, if applicable
Texas Food Manufacturing license from Texas Department of State Health Services
You will need a Texas Food Manufacturing license for packing honey. The license application may be found at the following website: www.dshs.state.tx.us/foods
In the left side column you will see “License Applications”. Clicking on this brings up another page. Scroll down that page to the Foods license applications. The correct license is the one that says Food Manufacturer “Initial, Renewal, or Change of Ownership”. You can apply and pay the license fee “online” or print off the Adobe version and mail in a hard copy with your payment. If you have any questions on filling out the license application you may call our licensing department at 512-834-6626.
What about using my home kitchen?
In Texas there is a prohibition of manufacturing or holding of food at a private residence for wholesale or for sale at a retail outlet (including farmers markets) as follows:
Texas Administrative Code 229.183(3) Living areas. No manufacturing or holding of foods for distribution shall be conducted in any room used as living or sleeping quarters. All food manufacturing and storage shall be separated from any living or sleeping quarters by complete partitioning.
Manufacturing and/or storage of food products may be permitted at a private residence if the following conditions are met: (build a facility at your own house)
- The room used is completely partitioned from living, eating, or sleeping quarters.
- The room used has an exterior entrance.
- The room used meets all applicable requirements of the 25 TAC 229.210-222 (also known as the Current Good Manufacturing Practice and Good Warehousing Practice in Manufacturing, Packing, or Holding Human Food).
- Your firm obtains the appropriate license from this department.
There is an exception to these regulations under the Cottage Food bill (information may be found at
http://www.dshs.state.tx.us/foodestablishments/cfpo). Currently honey is not included as a Cottage industry. There are prohibitions for the Cottage food industry and very limited options for selling your products (no wholesaling, no internet sales, etc).
You will want to become familiar with the “Current Good Manufacturing Practices” which may be found on the Foods homepage under “Rules and Regulations” on the right hand side of the page, specifically, sections 229.211-229.222. These are the regulations that govern the manufacturing facility and the storage facility for manufactured food. Basic labeling information and frequently asked questions are addressed in the menu on the left hand side of the page.
FDA Food Labeling
General food labeling information source is the “FDA Food Labeling Guide” publication which was written in a more user friendly way to help business label products properly. It may be found by searching on the internet (FDA Food Labeling Guide) or simply go to the following website: http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocumentsRegulatoryInformation/LabelingNutrition/ucm2006828.htm
There is an additional labeling recommendation for honey. That is a warning on the label not to feed honey to infants under one year old. Bruce Boynton, CEO at the National Honey Board has indicated that this remains a voluntary warning on honey. In other words, while it can certainly be recommend that the statement be included on your label, it cannot be required. The statement that is commonly used is the following: “Do not feed honey to infants under one year of age”.
FDA Food Facility Registration
Note: This is not required if you are only selling your honey directly to the consumers that will not reuse the honey in any other sale of products. If you wholesale your honey, once you send in your food manufacturing license application, there is also a FDA Food Facility Registration that is required by all wholesalers. There is no fee to register but it is required by law to file. The registration is easy and its purpose is to have your firm on record so that your firm can be contacted in case of any food alerts. You will want to visit their website at: http://www.access.fda.gov/ . If you have any trouble registering on-line, just call their toll free number at 1-800-216-7331.
Local Health Departments and Homeowner Regulations
Also, you will want to check your local health department as they may also issue a permit or license for your operation. Also, they may have additional requirements in addition to the Good Manufacturing Practices.
Homeowner’s Associations can have regulations or even deed restrictions against food or manufacturing in the neighborhood. So check with them as well.
This document was composed with guidance from:
Fred Atwood, RS
Compliance Officer, Texas Department of State Health Services
For additional information please feel free to contact any of the Compliance Officers with Foods Group PSQA:
Policy Standards and Quality Assurance – Foods
1100 W. 49th St – Mail Code 1987
P.O. Box 149347
Austin, Texas 78756
Phone: 512-834-6670, fax: 512-834-6681,
Educational programs of Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service are open to all people without regard to race,color, sex, disability, religion, age, or national origin. The Texas A&M University System, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the County Commissioners Courts of Texas Cooperating
