State cottage-food sales laws struggle to keep up with trend - Entrepreneur Generations

Selling homemade food such as jams, baked goods and candies is a practice as old as civilization, but as the "eat local" movement gains in popularity, such cottage-food sales in the U.S. have increased from $5 billion annually in 2008 to a predicted $20 billion in 2019, Marsha Mercer reports for Stateline.

States have been trying to keep up with the trend by allowing cottage-food sellers to make their products at home, instead of in a commercial kitchen. State or federal approval of a kitchen can be a time-consuming, expensive process that would put homemade food sales out of reach for many, Mercer reports.

Now, "every state except New Jersey now allows home-kitchen cooks to make and sell non-hazardous foods with a low risk of causing foodborne illness such as baked goods, jams, jellies and other items that do not require time and temperature controls for food safety," Mercer reports. "Maine, North Dakota, Utah and Wyoming have gone further, enacting 'food freedom' laws that exempt home producers from food-safety rules that apply to grocery stores, restaurants and other food establishments."

Proponents of food-freedom laws see them as common-sense measures that preserve liberty with little risk, which the federal government seems willing to allow, to an extent: "when the Maine legislature passed a food sovereignty law in 2017 that allowed municipalities to set their own food-safety ordinances, the U.S. Department of Agriculture threatened to take over meat inspections in the state," Mercer reports.

Meat inspections are required by federal law, but Wyoming State Rep. Tyler Lindholm introduced a bill in 2017 that would allow farmers to sell chickens, fish and rabbits without inspection, regulation, licensing or taxation. He argued that farmers would do a better job of ensuring their meat is safe than federal inspectors since locals would not buy from a farmer known to sell bad meat, Mercer reports.

The North Dakota Grocers Association opposed a similar food-freedom law in their state, arguing that rural grocers were at a disadvantage since they had to follow health regulations while cottage-food sellers were free to do as they pleased, Mercer reports.

from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/2HOdb4w State cottage-food sales laws struggle to keep up with trend - Entrepreneur Generations

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