Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, Division of Quality Assurance and Regulations

Food Establishment License (manufacturing, processing or retail sale)

Maine draws a precise line: this license covers a factory, warehouse or store that manufactures, processes or sells food, and by definition excludes anywhere classed as an eating establishment under the health department's own rule — the two categories are written to be mutually exclusive. The fee scales by headcount rather than seating: $20 a year for up to ten employees, $50 for eleven to twenty-five, $150 for twenty-six or more, with the identical three-tier structure repeated across retail food stores, food storage warehouses, retail bakeries, mobile vendors and cider producers. A few categories are priced flat instead — a commercial bakery or a food processing and manufacturing operation at $50, home food manufacturing at $20. A licensee may pay once for a two or three year term at a straightforward multiple of the annual rate.