Can I sell my hot sauce from home in New Mexico?

No. New Mexico's Homemade Food Act lets you sell many foods from your home kitchen with no permit at all, but it lists acidified foods, salsa, pickles and sauerkraut among the foods you may not make at home for sale [1]. A vinegar hot sauce is an acidified food, so it falls outside the Act. To sell it, you need a commercial manufactured food permit from the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) and a permitted kitchen [1] [2]. This page explains where the line sits, what happens to fermented sauce, and what the permitted route asks of you.

Why a chile sauce falls outside the Homemade Food Act

The Act, in force since July 1, 2021, covers foods that do not need time or temperature control for safety. NMED's list of foods that cannot be made at home for sale includes "acidified foods," salsa, pickles, sauerkraut, salad dressings, garlic in oil, juices, kombucha and hot pepper jelly, and NMED says the list is not exhaustive [1]. Hot sauce is not named. It does not need to be: a sauce made by adding vinegar or lime juice to peppers is the textbook acidified food, a low-acid food brought to a finished equilibrium pH of 4.6 or below with added acid. The acidified foods page explains that definition.

The City of Albuquerque runs its own food program, and its Homemade Food Act page carries the same exclusions: acidified foods, salsa and vegetable jellies such as hot pepper jelly [3]. If you live in Albuquerque, the city's Consumer Health Protection Division is your regulator for the commercial side, not NMED.

Fermented chile mash

NMED lists sauerkraut and kombucha as not allowed and does not mention fermented pepper mash or fermented hot sauce by name [1]. Do not read the silence as permission. This book treats a ferment finished with vinegar or other acid as an acidified food unless a process authority classifies it otherwise in writing, and a straight ferment sold unrefrigerated still has to prove it is shelf stable. Either way, NMED makes that call. The fermented sauce page covers how that call gets made.

What the Act would allow, for contrast

If you also make foods the Act does cover, such as dry chile powder blends or baked goods, the rules are light [1]:

None of that reaches a bottle of hot sauce. It matters only because many sellers run both kinds of product, and the home label statement must never go on a sauce made under the Act's exclusion.

The permitted route: a commercial manufactured food permit

NMED's answer for excluded foods is direct: "a commercial manufactured food permit from NMED is required" [1]. The same permit is needed if you want to sell to restaurants, stores, wholesalers or buyers outside the state, whatever the food [1].

NMED's Manufactured Food Field Guide (February 2016, based on 7.6.2 NMAC) lists what a permit application includes: ingredients, final product pH and water activity, preservatives, packaging, a process flow chart, distribution and shelf-life information, your cooking times and temperatures, labels, a coding system for date and place of manufacture, and recall procedures kept on file [2]. It says acidified food processors must comply with federal rules in 21 CFR Parts 108 and 114, register their plant with FDA and file processing information for each product, and that the regulator may require review by a process authority [2]. The field guide is ten years old and predates the Homemade Food Act, so ask NMED for the current application and fees before you build anything around it.

In practice that means:

1. A permitted kitchen, either your own or a rented commercial or shared-use kitchen. The kitchen or co-packer page compares the options.
2. A process authority's review of each recipe, which gives you the written scheduled process. Start at the process authority page.
3. The federal acidified food steps: food facility registration, then an FCE number and a process filing for each sauce and bottle size.
4. A label that meets the federal rules on what a hot sauce label must say. The home-produced statement does not apply to permitted products.

Confirm with NMED or Albuquerque before you bottle

Statewide, the agency is the New Mexico Environment Department, Food Program, 1190 St. Francis Drive, Santa Fe, phone 800-219-6157 [1]. Inside Albuquerque, call the city's Consumer Health Protection Division at 505-768-2738 [3]. Ask which permit applies to an acidified sauce, the current fee, and whether your process authority letter satisfies their review. This page was last verified in October 2026.

From a home recipe to a permitted sauce

NMED's permit is one layer of several, and they come in a set order. The licensing page lists them, and the fifty-state overview shows how New Mexico compares with its neighbors.

References

1. New Mexico Environment Department, Homemade Food Act FAQ, August 16, 2021. https://www.env.nm.gov/foodprogram/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2025/06/Homemade-Food-Act-FAQ.pdf
2. New Mexico Environment Department, Manufactured Food Field Guide (Final Rev 01), February 29, 2016. https://www.env.nm.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2019/10/ManufacturedFoodFieldGuide02292016FinalRev01.pdf
3. City of Albuquerque Environmental Health, New Mexico Homemade Food Act, not dated (viewed October 2026). https://cabq.gov/environmentalhealth/food-safety/new-mexico-homemade-food-act