Neighbors can host backyard barbecues. Churches and schools can organize potlucks. And sports fans can have tailgate parties. But if anyone tries to sell homemade meals, code enforcers in most states will shut them down.
Hypothetical worst-case scenarios scare lawmakers, so they block home chefs from using their own kitchens to make money selling anything that requires refrigeration. Homemade pizzas, puddings, and pumpkin pies are off-limits. Even lemonade stands are illegal in some jurisdictions.
The rationale is simple: Better safe than sorry. Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs used this excuse on April 18, 2023, when she vetoed a so-called “tamale bill” that would have created a new source of income for immigrants and other home-based chefs. “This bill would significantly increase the risk of food-borne illness,” Hobbs wrote in her veto letter.
It sounds scary. Yet new data from our public interest law firm, the Institute for Justice, dismantles the narrative. States that allow home chefs to sell perishable foods report no confirmed cases of relevant foodborne illness. Zero. Zilch. Nada.
To make sure, we inspected public records from states with the fewest restrictions on “cottage food,” which refers to homemade food prepared for sale. The list includes California, Iowa, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming. Most other states and Washington, D.C., limit the cottage food menu to shelf-stable items like cookies and jams. But these seven states go further.
As champions of food freedom—the right to buy, sell, grow, and advertise locally sourced and prepared foods—they allow home cooks to sell perishable foods that require refrigeration.
Critics gasp at the boldness, but doomsday predictions about foodborne illness have never materialized. Across the seven states, public records show only two instances of suspected foodborne illness from homemade meals sold under those states’ laws, and neither case was confirmed nor serious.
Hellbound and Down 