Since 2009, the number of states with cottage food laws has doubled. There are currently 11 states with such laws in place and six with bills under consideration. The first was passed by Oregon more than 20 years ago. Under Oregon regulations, home kitchens are inspected and approved by the same health authorities who certify restaurant and commercial kitchens. The standards are strict and surprise visits are part of the law.
Elizabeth Montes, the owner of Sagahuan Chocolates, is one of many Oregonians who took advantage of the law to start a business at home. "After I graduated from Ecole Chocolat in Canada, I moved to New York," Montes said. "But it cost so much to rent a commercial kitchen, I couldn't work for myself. Then I moved to Oregon and found out about the cottage food law." After several years of making chocolates at home and selling them at farmers' markets, Montes saved enough to open her own brick-and-mortar chocolate shop. She has since been featured in several major food magazines.
Under the most recent cottage food law, enacted in Michigan, home kitchens are exempted from health department regulations if they produce nonhazardous foods such as cakes, cookies, jams and jellies and their volume of business is under $15,000. Although it initially met with resistance from the Michigan Department of Agriculture and established food companies, the cottage food law has become the darling of state government in Lansing after being recognized nationally as an enlightened effort to help small entrepreneurs.
Other states such as Tennessee have enacted "hybrid" cottage food bills that combine the Oregon and Michigan approaches. Home bakers and cooks are required to take the same sort of health courses required of certified kitchen managers, and strict rules about home kitchens are enforced by the health department. But a bake-sale exemption allows home cooks to produce nonhazardous foods six times a year without restrictions.
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The proposed Texas Cottage Food Bill resembles the Tennessee approach. It requires home kitchens producing foods for sale to be licensed and operators to complete a course in food safety. The bill limits production to nonhazardous foods. Cottage food producers are restricted to direct consumer sales such as farmers' markets or roadside stands and are barred from selling over the Internet, to food-service establishments or at wholesale. Each package of food produced in a Texas home kitchen would be required to bear a label with a list of ingredients, the name and address of the cottage food production operation and a warning reading: "Made in a home kitchen that has not been inspected by a state or local health authority."
Meanwhile, on the other side of the food culture war, the food-safety crackdown continues. New rules restricting the operation of farmers' markets and the vendors who sell their wares there are about to be introduced in Texas. Representatives from city health departments, the state Department of Agriculture and other "stakeholders" are attending a Farmers' Market Workgroup that's being held under the direction of the Texas Department of State Health Services.
State health authorities are considering agriculture department and food industry recommendations that would put tougher restrictions on the sale of farm eggs and reclassify torn leaf lettuce as potentially hazardous. Strict enforcement of the direct-sale rules would forbid farmers' market vendors to sell wholesale to restaurants. And there are lots of new rules concerning refrigeration, sanitation, drainage, hand sinks, licenses and permits. The local farmers' market as we know it may not survive under the new rules.
Who wins the food culture war in this session of the Texas Legislature could decide where we shop and what we eat for decades to come.
Former Houston Chronicle food editor Janice Schindeler sells her pimento cheese, farm egg salad and other artisan products at farmers' markets in Houston — she cooks everything in a certified kitchen. "It's not about health or food safety. I have been in restaurants with certified kitchens that are disgusting. This is about our food culture. Some of us got into this to opt out of the corporate world," Schindeler said. "But in order to use a certified kitchen, you have to get insurance. So to stand in a parking lot selling your jams and jellies, you need a million dollars in liability coverage."
The Texas Cottage Food Bill would restore some authenticity to the farmers' markets, in Schindeler's view. "When you require food to be prepared in a certified kitchen, you end up with business owners having their staff do the cooking. To me, the farmers' market should be about people making their food and then hauling it to the market and interacting with their customers — literally and actually standing behind the product they are selling."
