Summary — SB 2386 (North Dakota) — Cottage Food Transactions (2025)
Status
- Introduced: March 12, 2025
- Filed with Secretary of State: March 20, 2025
- Action: Passed by the Sixty‑ninth Legislative Assembly (emergency clause included) and filed.
- Subject: Amendment to North Dakota Century Code § 23‑09.5‑02(3) (cottage food transactions).
- Emergency clause: Declared an emergency (law effective immediately upon signature/filing).
Purpose and intent
- To clarify and limit the kinds of cottage‑food transactions that are permitted, and to create a narrowly defined exception allowing the sale of certain uninspected poultry products produced by a cottage food operator, subject to specific conditions and limits.
Key provisions / changes
- Amends subsection 3 of NDCC § 23‑09.5‑02 to specify transactions that are prohibited under the cottage‑food statute. Transactions under this section may not:
- Involve interstate commerce (all allowed transactions must be intrastate).
- Be conducted over the internet or phone, through the mail, or by consignment (sales must be in‑person/local).
- Include the sale of uninspected products made from meat (meat remains generally excluded except as provided elsewhere in statute — subdivision “db”).
- Include the sale of uninspected poultry products except under a narrowly defined exception. That exception permits sale of uninspected poultry products only if all of the following are true:
1. The poultry were raised by the cottage food operator during the calendar year.
2. The operator does not buy or sell other poultry products — i.e., they may only offer products produced from poultry they raised.
3. The operator slaughters no more than 1,000 poultry in the calendar year.
4. The poultry product is not adulterated or misbranded (must comply with existing food‑safety labeling and adulteration rules).
Who is affected
- Primary: Cottage food operators/producers in North Dakota who raise and process poultry at small scale. The bill creates a limited pathway for those operators to sell uninspected poultry products directly (subject to the conditions above).
- Secondary: Consumers who purchase cottage food products, local food markets and farmers’ markets, food safety regulators and public‑health authorities tasked with enforcement of adulteration/misbranding provisions.
- Not affected/Excluded: Internet/mail/interstate vendors, commercial meat processors, and operators selling uninspected meat products (except as provided elsewhere in statute).
Practical implications and considerations
- Supports very small, local poultry producers by allowing limited intrastate direct sales of uninspected poultry products if operators both raise and slaughter ≤1,000 birds/year and comply with labeling/adulteration rules.
- Maintains restrictions intended to limit public‑health risk: no remote or interstate sales, cap on slaughtered birds, prohibition on buying/selling others’ poultry for these sales, and adherence to adulteration/misbranding laws.
- Regulators will continue to enforce existing food safety and labeling laws; enforcement emphasis likely on verifying the origin of poultry, the annual slaughter cap, and whether products are adulterated or misbranded.
- Emergency clause means the amendments take effect immediately upon final approval/signature, rather than on a later scheduled date.
Note
- This summary covers the North Dakota SB 2386 (2025) amending NDCC § 23‑09.5‑02. Documents with the same bill number from other states (Illinois, Mississippi, etc.) are unrelated; this summary does not address those.
