New Brunswick home-based food rules: what to check before selling

What New Brunswick actually decides

You can bake bread, cookies, cakes, muffins, fruit pies and tarts at home and sell them at a public market with no licence, as long as they need no refrigeration. Cream-filled and meat-filled pies are out.

That free pass is written for markets only. Selling the same baking from your door or by delivery falls outside it, so call Public Health before you build a delivery plan around it.

The language point is the one that genuinely distinguishes New Brunswick, and it is easy to get wrong because the federal rule sounds permissive. The single-language shortcut only works where an official language is the mother tongue of fewer than one in ten people nearby, and in most of New Brunswick both languages clear that bar. So both belong on the label.

New Brunswick prescribes no home kitchen notice, so there is no disclaimer sentence to print. No Nutrition Facts table is needed when you sell what you made yourself at a farmers market, a craft fair or a roadside stand.

The short version

What you can sell in New Brunswick

Straight from the official record. Read these as categories rather than a menu, because one recipe can cross the line on its own: a filling that needs refrigeration, a pH that needs testing, or a process that needs an authority to sign it off.

• Bread, cookies, cakes, muffins, fruit pies and tarts that need no refrigeration, sold at a public market

What is outside the rule

If your product is on this list, the answer is not "ask nicely". It is a different licence, a different kitchen, or both.

• Cream-filled and meat-filled pies
• Anything needing refrigeration
• Selling from your door or by delivery, which falls outside the market permission

Where you are allowed to sell it

The researched record lists direct sales, farmers markets, online orders, delivery.

One channel being open does not open the rest. Shipping, delivery and wholesale each turn on the product and where it is going, so check the route you actually plan to use.

Paperwork, training and inspections

The researched record does not list a general permit for this tier. The label record does not establish a province-wide permit. Check your local public health unit and municipality.

No training is recorded as universally required. Training varies by product and local authority. Confirm it before selling.

Routine is what the record says about inspections. Confirm what that means for your product and your local authority, because the two can differ.

Kitchen rules people miss

None of these fit on a label, which is exactly why they get skipped. Read them before the first batch, not after.

• You can bake at home and sell at a public market with no licence, as long as the food needs no refrigeration.
• The permission is written for markets only. Selling from your door or by delivery falls outside it, so call Public Health first.
• Both official languages belong on the label. The federal single-language shortcut only applies where an official language is the mother tongue of fewer than one in ten people nearby, and most of New Brunswick clears that bar for both.
• New Brunswick prescribes no home kitchen notice, so there is no sentence to print.
• No Nutrition Facts table is needed for food you made yourself and sell at a market, fair or stand.

What belongs on a New Brunswick label

Start this weekend

In this order, so the label is the last thing you check and not the first thing you guess.

1. Design the label bilingually from the start. Retrofitting a second language into a small sticker is painful.
2. Keep to public markets. Door sales and delivery fall outside this permission.
3. Call Public Health before planning delivery. The market exemption does not stretch to it.
4. Keep cream-filled and meat-filled pies out.
5. Do not add a home kitchen disclaimer. New Brunswick prescribes none.

Nearby guides

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