Each time a state has considered whether to allow residents to sell their homemade foods, there have been voices saying that food freedom will lead inevitably to foodborne illness. Despite the “Chicken Littles,” seven states freed cottage food producers to sell both shelf-stable and perishable foods. New data now show that none of those states have ever confirmed a foodborne illness attributed to homemade food sales. It’s welcome news to food entrepreneurs across the country.
The Institute for Justice used public records requests to get reports from California, Iowa, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming. While all of these states have slightly different regulations, they all permit home chefs to prepare and sell items beyond cookies, brownies, and other baked goods.
Again, in none of these states was there a confirmed case of illness. And across all the states there were only two instances of suspected foodborne illness, neither of which were confirmed to be from homemade food producers and neither of which were considered serious.
In North Dakota, health officials were so concerned about illness that they created regulations that flatly contradicted the food freedom bill the legislature passed in 2017. The legislature refused to ratify those rules with proposed legislation in 2019, but the health department fought on and the rules went into effect at the beginning of 2020.
This meant that Lydia Gessele had to stop selling the chicken soup she made using chickens raised on her own farm. Danielle Mickelson was stopped from selling homemade pizzas made with her home-canned pizza sauce. But Lydia, Danielle, and three other cottage food producers sued and won, striking down the illegal rules.
The new data should hearten food entrepreneurs in states that are seriously thinking about expanding sales, such as Arizona. Last year, Gov. Katie Hobbs was roundly criticized for vetoing a “tamale bill” that would have expanded the sale of food prepared in home kitchens. The tamale ladies are a fixture on Arizona streets and many prepare family recipes handed down from generation to generation.
The Arizona Republic highlighted Rosalba Lopez, who makes distinctive tamales made with mole sauce and wrapped in banana leaves. She has been making her tamales in her home and selling them from a Home Depot parking lot for a decade. That would have finally become legal but for Hobbs’ veto of the bipartisan bill.
In her short statement explaining her veto, Hobbs focused on food safety concerns. She characterized the bill as allowing “high-risk” foods and warned of home kitchens plagued by hazardous chemicals and rodents. But Arizona’s bill is modeled after those passed in the other food freedom states and does not go as far as several of them.
There is little doubt that the push for food freedom will resume when the Arizona legislature returns in early 2024. Other states that could allow more freedom in the coming year include Georgia, Hawaii, Minnesota, and New Hampshire.
Within a few years, home entrepreneurs could be selling their barbecue, hot dishes, and tamales to their neighbors. Legislators in those states can act with the knowledge that the sky will not fall when they give residents more freedom to sell homemade meals.
Read the full article here