As you probably know, New Jersey is the one state that still has no form of a cottage food law.

It has been one of the biggest headlines for this industry in the past few years, especially since the reasons for the ban are entirely political.

But this year, New Jersey might get a law after all!

The health department has proposed rules that would allow for the sale of cottage foods, if passed.

What they are trying to do is effectively bypass the legislative branch, as well as the stranglehold that Senator Vitale has placed on their previous efforts.

You might remember, just a couple months ago, that I shared some bad news regarding North Dakota. Their food freedom law got hijacked by the health department, which implemented rules to change the law that was in place. They only did this after a bill with similar restrictions did not pass.

That was extremely unfortunate, but it's good to see that this loophole is actually being used to potentially solve the problem in New Jersey.

My understanding is that this process, under normal circumstances, would take a few months. But these proposed rules came through a couple weeks ago, before the whole coronavirus thing went truly crazy, so I don't know if these efforts have been delayed. They probably have, but even still, this is a promising direction for New Jersey when normalcy returns, whenever that is.

And speaking of the coronavirus, many people have been asking about my thoughts on that, particularly in how to get customers when events are closed. I've been tossing around an idea to address these questions. Stay tuned!

David

P.S. You might notice that I'm not publishing a podcast episode this week, and that's intentional. I've decided to release an episode every two weeks, instead of weekly. This was always part of the plan: to release the first few episodes quickly, and then move to a more manageable schedule. Weekly podcasts are my ultimate goal, but I will have to wait until I can hire someone to help with the publishing process.