Do You Need a License to Sell Microgreens in Michigan?

If you sell whole, uncut produce you grew yourself, direct to consumers, Michigan does not license you. The moment you cut, wash, mix or repack it, that answer stops being automatic and becomes a determination MDARD has to make about your specific operation.

That second sentence is the one that matters, because cutting is what almost every microgreens grower does. Most sites stop at the exemption and leave growers assuming it covers them. It might. Michigan has not published a rule that says it does, and the honest answer is that this is decided farm by farm.

The federal layer sits underneath all of this and is the same in every state. Read the FDA Produce Safety Rule page first if you have not.

The direct answer, with the part everyone leaves out

MDARD publishes the exemption plainly: a person selling whole, uncut fresh fruits and vegetables is not a licensed food establishment, and that is stated for farmers markets and reflected in MDARD's guidance on who needs a license to sell food.

Microgreens are produce. A live tray, or a clamshell of greens you grew and did nothing else to, sits inside that exemption when you are selling it yourself to the person who will eat it.

Here is what is genuinely unsettled. Cut microgreens are highly perishable leafy produce, and Michigan does not publish a rule saying the whole produce exemption reaches them once they have been harvested, washed, mixed with other varieties, or packed into retail containers. Each of those is a food handling activity, and each can move an operation into licensing. MDARD makes that call on the facts of your operation.

So the practical version of the answer:

That table is honest rather than tidy. If a site tells you flatly that cutting is fine in Michigan, ask it where the rule is.

Which license, if you need one

When licensing is triggered, there are two categories that ordinarily matter, and which one applies depends on what you actually do and who you sell to.

The issuing agency is the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, Food and Dairy Division. Its contact details are in the who to ask panel at the foot of this page, so there is one place to correct them if they change.

The right category depends on the packing and processing you actually do and on your primary sales activity, which is another way of saying MDARD decides it and you should get that decision in writing before you print packaging or sign with a buyer.

The two different $25,000s

This is the single most common error in Michigan microgreens content, and it is worth being slow about, because the two numbers point in opposite directions.

The Michigan figure is measured on wholesale sales in the prior licensing year, or what you reasonably anticipate for the current one. It counts only wholesale food sales made by that processor operation, so your farmers market takings are not in it.

Being under the Michigan tier is a licensing category, not an exemption from anything else. It does not excuse you from federal rules, from state food safety law, or from your local ordinance.

Cottage food does not cover microgreens

Michigan's cottage food law is genuinely generous and it is genuinely not for you. It covers specified non potentially hazardous foods that can be held safely at room temperature, and its vegetable list excludes cut leafy greens and raw seed sprouts. Fresh microgreens are raw perishable produce, not a home manufactured shelf stable product, which is the thing cottage food exists to allow.

The caps get quoted at microgreens growers constantly, so for completeness: Michigan's cottage food cap is $50,000 in yearly gross sales of qualifying foods, or $75,000 where products are priced at $250 or more per unit, and MDARD's March 2026 material reflects that change, with an annual inflation adjustment possible from 1 October 2026. Both figures come from MDARD's cottage food selling guidance and its one page summary.

Neither number applies to microgreens. The correct route is the fresh, whole, uncut produce position in Michigan food law, together with the federal coverage analysis. That is not a technicality: it is a different rulebook with different duties, and a grower who thinks they are a cottage food operator is preparing for the wrong inspection.

The same goes for the in state online and mail order pathway the cottage food expansion opened. It applies to qualifying cottage foods. It does not make microgreens sellable under cottage food rules online.

Registration, sales tax, and the farm input exemption

Business registration. Michigan does not require a sole proprietor to form an LLC or a corporation. A business trading under an assumed name files with the county clerk, and an LLC or corporation files with LARA's Corporations Division. Filing fees depend on the entity and the filing, so use LARA's live fee schedule rather than a figure from an article. Registering a business is not a food license and does not produce one.

Sales tax. Fresh microgreens sold for human consumption are food and food ingredients, and Michigan's current bulletin confirms that food for human consumption is exempt, while prepared food intended for immediate consumption can be taxable. You do not need a seller permit purely to sell exempt food. If you make taxable sales of anything, you register and remit on those. A resale certificate is a purchaser's exemption document, not a grower's permit, per Treasury's exemptions guidance.

The input exemption worth knowing about. Michigan has an agricultural production sales and use tax exemption covering tangible personal property used directly or indirectly in tilling, planting, caring for, maintaining or harvesting horticultural products, when bought by a business enterprise using it for those purposes. It generally does not reach items affixed to real estate, and it can be apportioned for mixed use. It is an exemption on what you buy, not on what you sell, and not from food licensing.

Food safety and inspection

Michigan Food Law, the Michigan Modified Food Code where it applies, and MDARD licensing and inspection rules all sit on top of the federal floor, and state law separately prohibits adulterated or misbranded food. MDARD sets out its programs in its bureaus and programs listing.

Who inspects. Covered farms may be inspected by MDARD's Produce Safety Unit under the federal Produce Safety Rule program, and a licensed food establishment is separately subject to licensing inspection. Michigan does not publish a fixed inspection interval for every microgreens operation. Routine priorities are risk based, and complaints, outbreaks, recalls or evidence of unsafe food can trigger an investigation on their own.

A detail worth catching early. Processing that takes you outside the federal definition of a farm can bring FDA human food facility rules into play, which is a heavier regime than the Produce Safety Rule. MDARD publishes a mixed type facility flyer on exactly this, and says each farm's activities must be reviewed individually.

Water. Michigan publishes no separate microgreens water testing interval. A covered farm follows federal Part 112, and since the 2024 amendment that means an annual systems based pre harvest water assessment plus a reassessment after any change that increases the hazard, rather than the old blanket testing framework. Water that is unsafe or not of adequate sanitary quality cannot be used at all.

The free review nobody uses. MDARD runs the Produce Safety Program and the Michigan On-Farm Produce Safety Team, and offers a free, confidential, voluntary, non regulatory On-Farm Readiness Review carried out jointly by at least two of MDARD, MSU Extension, and Conservation District Produce Safety Technicians. The program flyer sets out how it works. There is no enforcement attached to it. If you are anywhere near covered, this is the cheapest look at your operation you will ever get.

Labeling and live trays

Michigan does not publish a microgreens specific label checklist. What binds is that packaged food must not be misbranded, and the federal baseline generally requires the common or usual name, net quantity, an ingredient list where there are ingredients, the name and place of business, and allergen declaration where it applies. That baseline is set out in FDA's food labeling guide.

A single ingredient raw microgreens package has no added ingredients, which makes the label short. Buyers and retailers routinely add their own fields on top: lot codes, harvest date, a UPC, farm identity, handling instructions. Those are contract requirements, not law.

Ask MDARD for a package and label review before a retail launch. It is a free way to find out that something is missing before you have printed five thousand of them.

Live trays. Michigan has no published rule treating a live tray differently from cut greens. The distinction that carries legal weight is the activity, not the format: a live tray of true leaf microgreens is produce, while cutting, washing, mixing, packaging, holding and delivery conditions can change what is required of you. One genuine exception, if it applies to you: industrial hemp live trays sit under the hemp program's own rules and are outside ordinary microgreens treatment.

What changes by sales channel

The pattern across the whole table: the state's answer follows the product and the activity, never the sales platform.

Growing at home, zoning, and right to farm

This is where Michigan growers actually get stopped, and it is not a state question at all.

Zoning is local and it is decisive. Home growing is subject to the zoning, home occupation, building, fire, water and septic, and nuisance rules of your specific city, township or county, plus any deed or HOA restriction on your parcel. Michigan does not replace local zoning with a statewide microgreens home grow permit, and it does not publish a statewide list of what each municipality requires. You check with your own zoning administrator, and you do it before you buy racks.

A commercial kitchen is triggered by activity, not by growing. What triggers a licensed food establishment is processing, preparation, or another activity outside the farm and whole produce position, not the act of growing microgreens. MDARD's mixed type facility guidance says each farm's activities are reviewed individually, and offers a free review.

Right to farm, and what it is not. Michigan's Right to Farm Program responds to nuisance complaints involving farms and can run a voluntary GAAMPs review at a farmer's request. It is not a food license, it does not displace zoning, and it does not immunise you from food safety requirements. Whether it is available at all depends on whether your operation qualifies as a farm under the Act and follows the applicable Generally Accepted Agricultural and Management Practices. Growers reach for it as a shield against a zoning problem. It is not that.

Insurance

Michigan does not publish a law requiring an ordinary microgreens grower to carry product liability insurance. That is not the same as saying you should not have it: a foodborne illness or recall claim can be large enough to end a small operation, which is why buyers insist on it even where the state does not.

Other lines become mandatory when their own statutory triggers are met, which is a separate question from food law. Workers' compensation and commercial auto are the usual ones. For insurance law questions the Department of Insurance and Financial Services is the right desk.

Restaurant and grocery contracts commonly require general and product liability cover, certificates naming the buyer as additional insured, indemnity, approved source and food safety warranties, traceability and recall cooperation, delivery specifications, and sometimes third party audit certification. Those are contract terms. They vary by buyer, and no Michigan statute sets them.

What Michigan does not publish

Every state page here carries this section, because the gaps are real information. These are the questions where Michigan has not published an answer, what the silence actually means, and who to ask. None of them are guesses, and none of them are filled in with a number that reads well.

Nine open questions is not a failure of research. It is what a state rulebook honestly looks like from a grower's chair, and knowing which questions have no published answer is the difference between asking one good question and reading fifteen blog posts that invent one.

The sources page has the wording that gets a written answer back, which matters more than the phone number.

Where the demand is

Michigan's microgreens opportunity concentrates in the Detroit, Warren and Dearborn metro and in Grand Rapids and Kentwood, where restaurant and specialty grocery density is highest. That is a statement about population and food scene, not a market study.

No authoritative state publication quantifies current Michigan microgreens competition or restaurant demand, so treat any number you see quoted for it with suspicion, including a confident one. For an actual launch decision, work from current farmers market vendor rosters, county business data, and calls to the restaurants you would want to supply. Three chef conversations will tell you more than any statewide figure.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: I sell live trays at a farmers market. Do I need a license? A: No. A live tray of your own produce, sold whole and uncut direct to the consumer, sits inside MDARD's whole and uncut exemption. The market itself may still require a vendor application, a fee, or proof of insurance.

Q: I cut my greens into clamshells. Am I still exempt? A: Not automatically, and this is the honest answer rather than the comfortable one. Michigan publishes no rule extending the whole and uncut exemption to cut, washed or mixed greens. Get a written determination from MDARD describing exactly what you do.

Q: Can I sell microgreens under Michigan cottage food law? A: No. Cottage food covers specified shelf stable home produced foods, and the vegetable list excludes cut leafy greens and raw sprouts. The $50,000 and $75,000 caps have nothing to do with microgreens.

Q: Is the Michigan $25,000 the same as the federal one? A: No, and this trips up a lot of growers. Michigan's $25,000 is the Limited Wholesale Food Processor tier and counts wholesale sales only. The federal figure is a coverage cutoff, counts all produce on a three year average, and is $34,324 for the current period.

Q: Do I need to charge sales tax on microgreens? A: Fresh microgreens for human consumption are exempt food, per Michigan's revenue bulletin. If you sell anything taxable alongside them, you register and remit on those sales.

Q: Can I grow in my basement and sell? A: The state does not stop you. Your city or township might, through zoning or home occupation rules, and Michigan publishes no statewide list of what each one requires. Ask your zoning administrator before you invest in the build.

Q: Does Right to Farm protect my home operation from a zoning complaint? A: Not the way people hope. Right to Farm addresses nuisance complaints for qualifying farms following GAAMPs. It does not displace zoning and it is not a food license.

Final thoughts

Michigan is a good state to start in, and the reason is not the exemption everyone quotes. It is that MDARD publishes plainly, runs a free on-farm review, and will give you a determination if you ask for one properly.

The trap is the middle ground. Whole and uncut is clearly exempt. Restaurant wholesale is clearly a different analysis. Almost every real grower lives between those two, cutting greens into clamshells for a market stall, and that space is not settled by anything Michigan has published. Get it in writing, keep the reply, and re-ask when you add a channel.

If something here does not match what MDARD told you, report it and it gets corrected. A page that is wrong about a rule is worse than no page.

Sources

Every claim above traces to one of these. All checked 6 August 2026.