More entrepreneurs and food producers will be able to produce a variety of home-made food to sell direct-to-consumers after legislative victories by WORC member groups in Colorado, Montana, and Idaho.
Cottage food laws allow producers to prepare and sell non-hazardous, processed foods made in their home or farm kitchen and sold directly to consumers. The laws vary, but cottage foods sales are generally limited to low-risk foods with a stable shelf life like jams, jellies and bake goods that do not require refrigeration. The laws often include simple regulation like requiring labels and that producers receive basic food safety handling certification.
Western Colorado Congress built on its previous success by expanding Colorado’s Cottage Food Act the group helped pass in 2012 to include home-canned pickled vegetables. When the Act first passed, it excluded pickled vegetables but WCC heard from small producers and other rural residents that expanding the law would help them start or expand their businesses. WCC members gathered hundreds of petition signatures, drafted bill language, testified and worked with state and local health departments to address concerns and crafted workable legislation.
The legislation, House Bill 1102, creates two tiers of cottage food products legal to sell. Tier one includes the products allowed under the original law and clarifies additional products like flour, fruit empanadas and tortillas.The second tier includes pickled vegetables and instructs the State Board of Health to engage in a public rulemaking process to regulate their production and sale. WCC plans to turnout members and generate public involvement in the rulemaking for pickled vegetables beginning this fall.
Northern Plains Resource Council members helped pass Montana’s new cottage food law in the 2015 legislature. Legislation to legalize cottage food sales in Montana was one of the recommendations that came out of a yearlong study of the state’s food laws in 2014 by three state agencies responsible for food regulation. The study was aimed at unifying the state’s food safety regulation, which is regulated differently across county lines and agencies. Northern Plains members were among the many farmers and consumers who weighed in at the agencies’ public meetings.
Members collected petition signatures and urged state legislators to pass a cottage food bill. Montana’s law standardizes the registration process so producers won’t have to purchase expensive permits in each county they sell. Northern Plains is drafting and submitting comments as part of the state’s rulemaking phase to weigh in how the law will be enforced.
In Idaho, the sale of homemade food products had been legal but unregulated. Idaho Organization of Resource Councils members set out to pass a cottage food law in the Idaho legislature in 2015 that would create clarity and consistency. The bill passed a House committee and was sent on the House where it eventually died. Though the law did not pass, the state Department of Health and Welfare agreed to create rules to regulate the sales of cottage foods following a public rulemaking process.
IORC members collected hundreds of postcards and letters in support of consistent cottage food policies across the state, created a short video shared widely on social media, and collected photo petitions to support the campaign. IORC members will provide comments and turnout the public to public meetings on the proposed rules in the fall. So far, proposed regulation meets nearly all of IORC members’ demands, except that pickles and acidified foods will not be included in the list of acceptable foods to sell.
Cottage food laws are another step toward building “homegrown prosperity” where food is grown and produced in our rural communities, generating jobs and income, and connecting producers and consumers.