Come and bake it.
Although the article claims 1000 new businesses, the number may be substantially higher.Texas is enjoying a burst of entrepreneurship after enacting laws that let anyone turn a home kitchen into a business incubator. Under “cottage food” laws, people can sell food baked or cooked at home, like cookies, cakes and jams, if it’s deemed to have a very low chance of causing foodborne illnesses. Crucially, cottage food laws exempt home bakers from having to rent commercial kitchen space.
Food safety, often stated as the reason for prohibiting these businesses, has proven to be a non-issue to date.An exact number of just how many of these operations have sprung up is rather hard to come by. Since Texas does not issue permits or licenses for cottage food production operations, the state does not have a precise way to track them. However, anyone who wants to operate a cottage food business is required to become a certified food handler. In Texas, there are at least two organizations that offer courses specifically designed for cottage food: Texas Food Safety Training and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension. Between the two of them, over 1,400 individuals have purchased and completed courses over the past year. Given that cottage food entrepreneurs can also comply with the state’s regulations by taking a general food handler course, the true number of home baking businesses may be even higher.
Two states not often in sync are among the best when it comes to home cooking businesses.After contacting both the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) and environmental health departments for the 25 largest cities and counties in Texas, the Institute for Justice found no complaints regarding foodborne illnesses from a cottage food business.
The movement has found support from a wide variety of people.In a rare nexus of agreement, both California and Texas—widely considered polar opposites on the political spectrum—have some of the better cottage food laws in the nation. Lawmakers in both states overwhelmingly voted in favor of easing restrictions on selling food made at home.
Would you buy home-baked goods at a farmers’ market, roadside stand or county fairs?The local food movement “transcends so many of the typical categorizations and boundaries,” noted Judith McGeary, Executive Director of the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance and a driving force behind liberalizing home baking in Texas. “Whether people are passionate about personal liberty, the environment, human health, local economic development or any one of a dozen other important issues,” she added, “they can find benefits in the local food movement.”