We’re Enrolling Makers in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia

We don’t own a plant. We’re not going to build one.

The Un-Factory is a food company assembled out of cottage kitchens — independent makers, each producing in their own space, each supplying the venues in their own city. The first product moving through that network is Dare to Pop™, a premium popcorn line built around four flavors: Brown Butter & Black Garlic, Cheese Board, Crème Brûlée, and Electric Sichuan.

We’re now enrolling the makers who will craft it in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

Why these three states, and why now

For most of the last decade, cottage food law in the Southeast was built around one assumption: a home baker selling a few dozen cookies at a farmers market. Sell to a store and you needed a commercial facility.

That assumption has been coming apart.

• Georgia passed HB 398, effective July 1, 2025. It removed the state cottage food license, removed the revenue cap, and — the part that matters most to us — authorized cottage operators to sell into retail stores and restaurants within Georgia.
• South Carolina now permits home-based food producers to sell both directly and into retail, with no statutory revenue ceiling, under oversight that moved to the Department of Agriculture.
• North Carolina’s Home Processor pathway has long allowed qualified producers to sell wholesale, which is why we launched here first.

Three adjacent states, all of which now let a person in a cottage kitchen legally supply a bar, a bottle shop, or a grocery aisle. That is a genuinely new condition, and it’s the reason we’re opening enrollment now rather than in three years.

(Rules vary by product, county, and municipality, and they change. Part of enrollment is confirming exactly what applies to you before you produce a single bag.)

The cities we’re enrolling

We’re not opening everywhere at once. Each maker needs real accounts to sell into — bars, breweries, hotels, specialty grocery — which means we’re going city by city, where the demand already exists.

North Carolina

• Asheville — founding market; already in production
• Charlotte — largest wholesale account base in the state
• Raleigh–Durham — dense brewery and specialty grocery scene
• Wilmington — coastal tourism plus a strong independent bar culture
• Winston-Salem / Greensboro — underserved for premium local snacks
• Boone / Blowing Rock — High Country lodging and seasonal volume

South Carolina

• Greenville — one of the fastest-growing food scenes in the Southeast
• Charleston — hotel and hospitality density is unmatched in the region
• Columbia — university market with year-round bar traffic
• Myrtle Beach — high-volume tourism corridor
• Hilton Head / Bluffton — premium resort accounts

Georgia

• Atlanta metro — including Decatur, Marietta, and Alpharetta as distinct maker territories
• Savannah — hotels, tourism, and a deep independent retail base
• Athens — brewery and music-venue accounts
• Augusta — steady demand with almost no premium local competition
• Blue Ridge / Ellijay — mountain tourism and gift retail
• Brunswick / St. Simons — coastal resort accounts

If your city isn’t listed and you think we’re wrong about it, tell us. Some of the best markets are the ones a spreadsheet misses.

What the work actually is

You make popcorn. We handle nearly everything around it.

• We send you your supplies at no cost to fulfill the orders we place with you. Kernels, pre-blended seasonings, packaging, labels. You don’t buy inventory to start. If you also want to sell retail on your own — farmers markets, pop-ups, your own accounts — you can buy supplies upfront and keep that margin yourself.
• Run Ticket handles the logistics. Run Ticket is the software that runs the decentralized factory. It issues your production runs, walks you through each step and quality check, tracks your batch codes, schedules production against real orders, and routes your deliveries. The point is that you don’t spend your day on order processing and route planning. You spend it crafting food.
• Standards are real, and they’re enforced. Every run has checkpoints. You photograph the finished product as part of sign-off. Missed checks carry penalties, and enough strikes means losing the right to produce Un-Factory product. That sounds strict because it is. It’s also the only reason a bar in Savannah and a bottle shop in Boone can trust the same brand.
• You can land your own wholesale accounts. Sign a brewery or a hotel yourself and there’s no upfront cost to you — you earn commission on what moves through it, through our Brand Ambassador program.

Who we’re looking for

Not necessarily a professional chef. We’re looking for people who are exacting, reliable, and want to build something in their own city under a brand that’s bigger than one kitchen.

Enrollment involves a qualification review of your cottage kitchen against our facility standards, an interview, and a background screening. Makers who pass sign an Independent Manufacturing Partner Agreement — you stay independent, you run your own operation, and you produce to our spec.

We’d rather enroll one maker per city who takes it seriously than five who don’t.

How to start

Tell us your city and a little about your kitchen. If we’re opening in your market, we’ll walk you through qualification from there.

Apply to become a maker →

Made local. Sold local. That’s not a slogan we retrofitted onto a supply chain. It’s the entire structure.