The permit ladder.

Where are you now, and what do you want to do?

You can ask Google or ChatGPT for the state rules. The statute is public. What those answers usually skip is the jump: what it takes to move from not selling, to selling from home, to selling to stores — and, for some bakers, into a commissary or commercial kitchen.

The steps are called different things in every place. A home-baker permit in one county is an exemption in the next. Some places let you do at step one what another place will not allow at step two.

Crosodo exists to make each county’s buckets, and the jumps between them, plain.

Four steps

Step 0 — Not selling yet. Gifts, potlucks, the office tray. No money has changed hands, so you have not needed a legal path.

Step 1 — Sell from home. This is the cottage-food / home-baker bucket: a permit, a registration, or an exemption, depending on the state. In Virginia, qualifying low-risk foods from a private home can be sold without a VDACS inspection or permit under Va. Code § 3.2-5130. In Maryland, COMAR 10.15.03.27 does not require registration before you sell to the person who will eat the food, but it does have labeling rules and a sales cap. See the Virginia guide and the Maryland guide.

Step 2 — Sell to stores and markets. Wholesale, a grocery shelf, a café that resells your cookies. The jump is not the same everywhere. Virginia’s cottage path is for an individual’s own consumption — not for resale into retail food establishments. That next paper is a Home Food Processing Operation (HFPO): inspected and permitted. Maryland can allow cottage sales at retail food stores, but only after labels and an ANSI-accredited food-safety course go to the Maryland Department of Health and the Department writes back. Colorado’s Cottage Foods Act still does not allow wholesale to retail food establishments.

Same baker question. Three different answers. The form names will not match.

Step 3 — Commercial or commissary kitchen. For some people, step 2 from home does not make sense — pets, a lease, zoning, a product that cannot be made at home, or a volume that needs a shared kitchen. That path is a food-establishment or processor license: more permits, more inspections. The kitchen-cost side of that jump is in cottage food vs. commercial kitchen.

Where are you / what do you want to do?

Start with two questions, not a statute PDF.

1. Where are you now — not selling, or already selling from home?
2. What do you want to do — keep selling from home, or sell to stores?

Then look at the jump in your county: the name of the permit, the office that issues it, what is allowed in each bucket, and what changes.

What typically changes at each jump

These are typical. Your county page holds the local names.

• 0 → 1. Register or permit as a cottage baker where your state requires it. Virginia does not issue a cottage certificate; the exemption is the path. Follow the label rules. Watch the sales cap — Maryland’s cap is $100,000 a year from October 1, 2026 (HB0535 / Chapter 320; October 1 note).
• 1 → 2. What typically adds: a wholesale or retail food license, an inspection, and sometimes a hard no from a home kitchen. Virginia cottage labels say the food is not for resale. Fairfax County’s home-based food path is online or off-site only — not porch pickup — and uses a Home-Based Business permit. Fairfax City is a different government and uses a Minor Home Occupation. Two neighbors, two local names, on top of the same state food law.
• 2 → 3. A commissary or commercial kitchen, a food-establishment permit, more inspections.

The names on this page will not match the names on your forms. That is the point.

Crosodo’s mission

Make each county’s buckets and the jumps between them plain, so bakers know exactly what the next step takes.

The rules are findable. The ladder — where you are, what you want, and what the jump takes in your county — is the part Crosodo holds.

Look up your state guide. Open your county page. Read from cottage bakery to selling in stores if the shop question is the one in front of you.

Not legal advice. Confirm with your state food agency and with the city or county before you sell.