California Legalized Selling Food Made At Home And Created Over A Thousand Local Businesses

A government official appears at a man’s door. The man has been breaking the law: He has sold bread baked at home. This isn’t a page from Kafka—it happened to Mark Stambler in Los Angeles. For decades, Stambler has followed traditional methods to bake loaves of French bread.  The ingredients are simple: distilled water, sea salt, wild yeast and organic grains.  Stambler even mills the grain himself.  To make it easier to steam loaves, he built a wood-fired oven in his own backyard.  Stambler’s loaves came in first place at the Los Angeles County Fair and the California State Fair. Soon after that, Stambler got the idea to expand his hobby into a home business, which became Pagnol Boulanger.  Word of mouth spread.  In June 2011, The Los Angeles Times profiled Stambler and his bread in a full-page feature. Unlike his bread, that profile was bittersweet.  He was busted the very next day.  As he described it, the health department “descended like a ton of bricks on the two stores that were selling my bread…they could no longer sell my bread.” An inspector from the health department even showed up at his doorstep to make sure “no bread baking was taking place.”  For the next 18 months, Pagnol Boulanger was forced to go on hiatus. That’s when he “became an activist,” Stambler said in an email interview. He started researching other states’ cottage food laws, which allow homemade food to be sold.   To qualify as a cottage food, it must be designated by the state as “non-potentially hazardous,” meaning it has a low risk of spreading bacteria. Out of the blue, he got a call from his Assemblyman, Mike Gatto, who read The Los Angeles Times profile, and wanted to help him and other small businesses. Stambler helped Assemblyman Gatto draft the California Homemade Food Act (AB 1616) to legalize cottage food.  AB 1616 was overwhelmingly popular with lawmakers, passing the California State Assembly 60 to 16 and unanimously passing the state Senate in August 2012.  Upon signing the bill, Gov. Jerry Brown praised AB 1616 as a way to “make it easier for people to do business in California.” In January 2013, just a few days after the law went into effect, Stambler became the first person in Los Angeles County to sell homemade food legally.  Since he’s re-started his business, he hasn’t received a single complaint from consumers. More home bakers have followed.  In Los Angeles County, there are almost 270 cottage food businesses.  Statewide, over 1,200 homemade food businesses have been approved...more

Which state has the worst food laws?  Why its the same state that elected Al Franken to the U.S. Senate.


On the opposite spectrum for cottage food freedom are states like Minnesota.  The Land of 10,000 Lakes has one of the lowest sales caps on cottage food in the nation, banning people from selling more than $5,000 in a year.  That’s less than $100 a week. In addition, cottage food entrepreneurs in Minnesota can only sell at farmers’ markets and special events.  Unlike California, online orders and indirect sales are banned.  That greatly limits their growth.  Renegade bakers can face fines of up to $7,500 or three months in jail.