Hi there,
Congrats to New Hampshire! Their governor recently signed
HB 1565*, which expands the types of foods that producers can sell. The law will take effect on August 13th.
Specifically,
producers will be able to sell acidified foods (like pickles, salsas, sauces, etc). New Hampshire's cottage food law has a two-tier system (the higher tier needs to get a complex license), but fortunately
this change will apply to ALL producers in the state.
HB 1565
started as a much more ambitious bill, initially with the goal of completely rewriting New Hampshire's cottage food law as a food freedom law. So
this bill ended up being a pretty severe compromise, but it's still a great improvement nonetheless.
And there's still hope!
New Hampshire has another similarly ambitious bill this year,
HB 1685*, which also is trying to replace their cottage food law with a food freedom law.
That bill is currently under an interim study, so
hopefully the working committee can find a way to amend the bill and get a food freedom law passed.
Sometimes these types of studies can take a long time (over a year), but sometimes they reach a resolution quickly. It's hard to know if this potential law change would happen this year.
Forraging ahead,
David
* I wasn't aware of these bills until recently, so this is the first time you're hearing about them in this newsletter!