Hi there,
Well... they've done it.
They've found El Dorado. Atlantis. The Holy Grail.
For the first time ever, a state has found a way to
let producers sell food products that contain red meat.
And which state finally did it? Iowa.
Last week, Iowa's governor signed
HF 2431, which is an amazing improvement to both of their cottage food laws.
But perhaps more importantly,
it might point the way for other food freedom bills in the future.
And to put it mildly, states have struggled to find a way to let people sell items containing meat.
Here's a
brief rundown from recent history on the sale of homemade items containing meat:
- Wyoming tried to allow people to sell meat food products in their first food freedom law back in 2015, and the USDA came in and basically said "Hey, you can't do that. Meat is federally regulated by us, and it needs to be processed in a USDA facility."
- Wyoming found a loophole where people who raise their own poultry can sell items containing the poultry they raised and slaughtered.
- A number of states have passed food freedom bills that allow the same poultry exemption as Wyoming's, but again, the producer has to raise and slaughter the poultry themselves.
- Wyoming found a loophole that basically allows farmers to sell shares of their livestock before slaughter, which bypasses the USDA's requirements. But that doesn't affect most cottage food producers, and wouldn't allow a farmer to incorporate the meat into their products.
- California passed their law for micro-restaurants in 2018, and home cooks using that law are allowed to sell almost any type of food, including items with meat in it. However, there are significant restrictions, like needing to make and sell the items on the same day.
- Utah passed a similar law to California's in 2021.
So let's get back to Iowa.
Their new food freedom bill includes the poultry exemption described in #2 above.
That's great, though not all that surprising.
But then it goes on to say that producers can also use poultry and meat products that are produced under different exemptions (9 23 C.F.R.
§381.10(d) &
§303.1(d)).
And those are the exemptions that allow your local butcher or grocery store to process meat without being a USDA processing facility.
So under Iowa's new law,
a home food processing establishment can buy meat from their local butcher to use in their products. But they cannot use an item that arrives prepackaged at a grocery store (because it's processed in a USDA facility).
This marks the first time, to my knowledge, that a producer can also use purchased poultry in their products.
Hopefully we will see more states allowing this in the future!
Here are the
rest of the highlights from Iowa's new law:
- Changes "home bakeries" to "home food processing establishments", allowing far more than just perishable baked goods
- Allows cottage food businesses to sell online and ship products
- Allows cottage food businesses to sell acidified canned goods (like pickles)
- Increases the sales limit for home food processing establishments from $35k to $50k
Since it's not too hard (or expensive) to setup a home food processing establishment in Iowa, I think it's fair to say that that is
now the best overall law in the country!Until next week,
David