The cottage food industry in Rhode Island is booming. What were once side hustles – selling homemade food items made out of one’s own household kitchen – have now become streamlined, licensed operations creating the smallest of businesses across the state.
Kristin Costa, a former executive chef, runs Pinch of Fancy LLC, which makes mixed spice blends. She says she never imagined starting a business from her own kitchen.
“It was just a side hustle at first, but it’s an actual business now,” Costa said.
James Campagna started JimmyCs Italian Cookies LLC last year. His business – an enterprise similarly started from the comfort of his own home – specializes in baking pizzelles, a thin, wafer-like Italian cookie.
“I grew up with these cookies; I always had a passion for them. Really, it was just a great, fun activity that became a business opportunity,” Campagna said. “And it was a manageable business to start out of your house.”
But three years ago, running a homemade food business in the state from one’s kitchen was prohibited. The cottage food industry only opened up in November 2022, when laws were relaxed thanks to the passing of the Rhode Island Cottage Food Manufacture Act. Before that act, Rhode Island was the only state that did not permit residents to legally sell homemade foods from their homes.
Costa started her cottage food business in 2021 before the law was relaxed. Based out of Somerset in nearby Massachusetts, Costa says she was surprised at the obstacles she faced at the time when attempting to expand across the border into the Ocean State.
“I was taken aback when I found out I couldn’t work out of my home when I wanted to expand into Rhode Island,” Costa said. “I learned I couldn’t get licensed due to the nature of my cottage food business. Then, I was told by a health inspector that I would need a commercial license to sell and work in the state.”
But Costa eventually was able to get licensed to sell her homemade spice mixes once the law was changed. And many more cottage food businesses have since followed.
The R.I. Department of Health issued five licenses to cottage food businesses between November 2022, when the law passed, to Jan. 1, 2023.
A year later, there were 61 cottage food licenses issued by RIDOH. Another 58 were licensed in 2024, and 18 have been issued so far in 2025.
And many of the state’s cottage food businesses operate out of the culinary business incubator Hope & Main in Warren. The nonprofit rents out kitchen space and provides other resources to help these enterprises move from a household kitchen to fully fledged businesses.
Since 2014, Hope & Main has helped launch more than 400 food and beverage businesses, about 5% of which are cottage food businesses, according to Lisa Raiola, Hope & Main founder and president. Ranked among the top 10% of culinary incubators nationwide, the nonprofit boasts a nearly 40% business survival rate after seven years, far surpassing the national five-year average of 8%, Raiola said.
“A few years ago, there was literally only a handful of cottage food businesses in Rhode Island,” Raiola said. “The numbers don’t lie. Now we’re seeing the benefit of opening up that pipeline.”
Costa and Campagna both use the incubator’s kitchen space to grow their cottage food businesses.
Costa says she has scaled the scope of Pinch of Fancy thanks to Hope & Main’s support. Where she once was limited to making several small batches of mixed spices in her house, she now mixes between five and 40 pounds of spices in the incubator kitchen at any given time.
“Moving to Hope & Main allowed me to scale up, make bigger batches and store large mixing equipment that would otherwise clutter my home,” Costa said. “Not to mention the networking and resources they provide to introduce your product to a wider consumer base.”
Meanwhile, Campagna says he quickly realized he would be unable to meet the demand for his cookies from his home until he took the operation to Hope & Main last year.
Thanks to the nonprofit’s support, Campagna now has his vendors and cottage food business license and is in the process of scaling his business to meet increased volume.
“It got to a point where I couldn’t meet the demand from my home. I was using up my entire home for operations, and it got to the point where I couldn’t even use my kitchen for anything non-work-related,” Campagna said. “It wasn’t realistic to continue the business in my own house. Now, all my production is done at Hope & Main.”
Raiola says that much like the businesses Hope & Main help to grow, the cottage industry as a whole is on track to continue scaling within Rhode Island in the coming months and years.
“The cottage food industry will just continue to grow in the state. People are starting to see a pathway to turning a side hustle into a livelihood,” she said.
