Hi there,

As I wrote a few weeks ago, I recently launched a feature that shows you a map view of every cottage food bill that I've ever tracked.

This makes it far easier to notice trends from year to year, and in this email, I'll break down the trends that jumped out at me.

1. Some states aren't on the map

This map view shows all bills (from all years) together, and what you'll immediately notice is that some states are blank.

The states are: Idaho, Kansas, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina.

That's because these states didn't create their laws from bills, lawsuits, or some other clear initiative.

Rather, the states (usually the health/ag depts) developed the rules on their own.

This is also true for Hawaii, which isn't blank on the map since it shows this year's failed attempt to codify a cottage food law.

On one hand, this means that these 5 states' laws could be changed at any time by the health/ag dept. However, they tend to be some of the best cottage food laws out there, so there aren't usually efforts made to change them.


2. Maine was the first state to pass a cottage food law

The farthest back that I've been able to track is 1980, when Maine passed their Home Food Manufacturing Act.

The term "cottage food" really didn't exist back then.

But it's not too surprising that Maine was the first. With their food sovereignty law in 2017 and their "right to food" amendment last year, they continue to show that they're not afraid to give responsibility to their citizens and do things in an unorthodox way.


3. Iowa has the most cottage food bills

Since 1988, Iowa has passed 10 cottage food bills!

And 8 of those bills were passed before cottage food laws even became a trend during the Great Recession.


4. 2009 was a turning point

In response to the Great Recession, more states started to adopt cottage food laws in 2009.

That year, 6 states passed a cottage food law.

In previous years, up to 3 states (at most) tried to pass a bill for homemade food. And most of those bills were for farmers.

After 2009, the trend continued. There were 4 bills in 2010, 10 bills in 2011, 11 bills in 2012, and 10 bills in 2013.


5. 2017 was another (surprising) turning point

After most states adopted a basic cottage food law, the number of bills each year dropped significantly.

But then in 2017, we saw a big resurgence, with 12 initiatives that year, followed by 11 in 2018, and 8 in 2019.

What explains this?

As best as I can tell, the increase is correlated with the Institute for Justice getting involved with changing laws.

If memory serves me correctly, they started getting involved in 2016, and many of their efforts started to pay off in 2017.


6. The pandemic changes everything

Although there were plenty of surges in previous years, nothing compares to 2021.

Last year, a whopping 26 states tried improving their law, with 16 of those efforts being successful.

But it's also worth noting that most of 2021's bills were far more progressive than bills in the past.

Many of last year's failed bills (like the food freedom & micro-restaurant bills) would not have even seen the light of day in previous years.



All in all, what I see from the maps is simple: progress.

There has been at least one cottage bill in every year since 1998.

Sometimes the progress is faster, and sometimes it's slower, but it never stops, and I don't expect the progression of this industry to stop anytime soon!


Until next week,
David