呦乐园

Date posted: Monday, August 17, 2020
Blog poster: Doug Farquhar, JD

Cottage food laws permit the sale of small production foods without the burdens of fully licensed retail foods. Food freedom laws seek to eliminate those minimal restrictions and provide consumers direct access to unlicensed, homemade foods. Food freedom laws let food producers sell almost any homemade food, including canned, pickled, and refrigerated goods, aside from those that contain meat, without any cap on sales or any licensing, permitting, or inspection requirements.

State cottage food laws limit sales by the type of food products sold, the locations of sale, and the amount of revenue that a cottage food production can make to receive the protections of the law. A cottage food operation that is not licensed, regulated, or inspected means there is no oversight by a federal, state, or local regulatory agency to ensure that sanitary conditions meet safety guidelines at the point of production or point-of-sale. There is no oversight to ensure ingredients are obtained from an approved source or that good manufacturing practices, processing controls, or public health interventions are implemented to mitigate risk factors that are known to cause or contribute to injury or foodborne illness outbreaks. Often these products must be labeled to ensure the consumer knows the food has not been subject to state or local food safety requirements.

Conversely, food freedom laws provide broad exemptions from state and local oversight when selling directly to consumers. They exempt the producer from food safety licensing, permitting, certification, packaging, or labeling regulations.

Four states have laws that can be considered food freedom acts: Maine, North Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming. Utah and Wyoming are the most far-reaching, whereas Maine and North Dakota provide broad exemptions from food safety oversight.

These laws have led to an expansion of private food sales. Wyoming farmers markets have grown by 70% since the Food Freedom Act took effect in 2015, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). In North Dakota, the North Dakota Farmers Market and Growers Association estimates there are around 600 vendors at farmers markets, the majority of whom operate under the state's food freedom law.

Food safety regulators still have some oversight. Each of these laws explicitly ensures regulators have the power to investigate any complaints of a foodborne illness. The state health departments in North Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming all confirmed that there has not been a single outbreak of foodborne illness linked to a business operating under their states' food freedom laws. And although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicts that 1 in 6 Americans will become sick from contaminated foods or beverages each year and 3,000 will die, this claim is based on data collected before the advent of these four food freedom laws.

Wyoming's Food Freedom Act

The nation's first food freedom law, law exempts producers of "any product which may be consumed as food or drink" from all licensing, permitting, certification, packaging, or labeling regulations for foods sold to an "informed" consumer. Sales may occur at farmers markets or through the sale out of the producer's ranch, farm, or home.

The law does not differentiate between high-risk versus low-risk products. Most products may be sold without licensing regardless of their potential hazards, including animal products.

Any food is allowed to be sold directly to consumers under the Wyoming's Food Freedom Act except for some meats, poultry, and fish (rabbits and fish were included in the law in a 2017 amended bill). Sales must be made directly to an informed end consumer (i.e., "a person who is the last person to purchase any product, who does not resell the product and who has been informed that the product is not licensed, regulated or inspected") at farmers markets, farms, ranches, the producer's home or office, or any location in Wyoming where the producer and the informed end consumer agree to do business. Internet sales are allowed so long as the food is delivered within the state and not in violation of Food and Drug Administration interstate commerce rules.

All foods sold under the Food Freedom Act must be for home consumption only. No labeling is required; however, end consumers must be informed that the product is not licensed, regulated, or inspected.

Maine's Local Control Regarding Food Systems Act

The legislature in Maine sought to include food freedom into the state's constitution by enacting the Maine Constitutional Right to Food Amendment. The bill did not have the necessary votes to place it on the November 2020 ballot as a . It will, however, be carried over to the next legislative special session.

The ballot measure seeks to add language to the stating that individuals have a "natural, inherent, and unalienable right to food, including the right to save and exchange seeds and the right to grow, raise, harvest, produce, and consume the food of their own choosing for their own nourishment, sustenance, bodily health, and well-being, as long as an individual does not commit trespassing, theft, poaching, or other abuses of private property rights, public lands, or natural resources in the harvesting, production, or acquisition of food."

The state did enacted legislation in 2017, "An Act to Recognize Local Control Regarding Food Systems," that took a slightly different tactic. The law prohibits the state from imposing its food safety standards on cities and towns that develop their own food safety ordinances for any food producers engaged in direct-to-consumer sales at the point of production within the city or town. Because these local ordinances could allow the direct sale of uninspected meats, which is not allowed under federal law, USDA reacted to this legislation with a letter threatening to strip the state of its meat inspection authority, citing concerns that the legislation would cause violations of USDA's slaughterhouse regulations. To appease the federal government, the state amended the legislation to require city and town o