Food Manufacturers General Information

Who Must License as a Food Manufacturer?

Firms that manufacture food for sale to the public in the following manner are required to have a Food Manufacturer license with DSHS. This includes any firm that engages in the following activities:

• Processing and/or packaging any food product, including dietary supplements, ice, and water, for wholesale distribution or for sale via retail customer self-service.
• Selling vended or bottled water or bagging ice.
• Repackaging food products (eg. repacking candy into smaller or larger packages), for wholesale distribution or for sale via retail customer self-service.
• Any Texas firm that places their name and address on a product label, even though another firm (co-packer) actually produces the product. This is called "private labeling." A private labeler is required to obtain a Food Manufacturer license.
• Packaging food and displaying the packaged food for customer self-service. This includes all retail food service operations that package and display food in this manner.

Examples of Businesses Requiring Food Manufacturer Licenses

Examples include but are not limited to the following food manufacturing operations:

• Bakeries
• Bottling/Canning plants producing sauces, salsa, condiments, jams, jellies, canned vegetables and fruit
• Bottling/Canning plants producing water, soft drinks, fruit juice, vegetable juice
• Dietary supplement manufacturing and distributing (see the Dietary Supplements page)
• Grocery stores with meat markets, delicatessens, or bakeries that package and display food for retail customer self-service
• Ice bagging or wholesaling
• Ice plants
• Juice packaging (see the Juice HACCP page)
• Packaging cut produce/vegetables, shelling and packaging nuts, and firms washing/packaging produce in a separate location from the farm where it was grown
• Restaurants and other food service operations providing food packaged on-site via a retail customer self-service display
• Seafood processors (see the Seafood HACCP page)
• Water vending/bottling (see the Bottled and Vended Water program)
• Wineries
• Breweries

To obtain a Food Manufacturer license application, go to the Applications/Forms page.