Hi there,

Well, I thought this week's email would be all about Arizona's great new law. After all, their law did go into effect last Saturday.

BUT Arizona's health department needs to create rules for their new law, a process that (it appears) they haven't started yet. And until they create rules, people can't use the new law.

I have a love/hate relationship with administrative rules.

In cases like this (and Hawaii, which also is waiting for rules to enact their new law), I hate them because they can slow down the process and prevent people from being able to use a law for months, if not years (I'm looking at you, Connecticut).

But other times, rules are great! They give health or ag departments the ability to improve laws seemingly at will, which avoids the lengthy legislative process entirely.

New Jersey is the classic example of this. They still might be the last state without a law if it weren't for their health department creating rules. New York is another good example: their ag dept has used their rulemaking abilities to turn their restrictive law into a good one.

But one downside of rulemaking is that it happens behind-the-scenes. I am often not aware of a rule change for months, and sometimes years.

Which brings us to Delaware. I was recently made aware that Delaware's health department improved their cottage food rules late last year! Which is significant, because they have consistently been ranked as having one of the worst cottage food laws in the country.

Most notably, they removed the sales limit from their law, which is great! It was previously set to only $25,000/year, which was tied with Michigan and Alaska as the worst sales limit in the nation. Alaska just removed their sales limit this year, leaving Michigan as the lone state at the bottom.

Also, producers in Delaware are now no longer required to list their home address on labels (they are the first state to require the owner's city/town on labels instead), which is another great change.

However, there was one change that may not be so good. The strikethrough shows the change: "Traditional bakery items include, but are not limited to: cakes, breads, cookies, rolls, muffins, brownies, fruit pies pies, and pastries."
The "but not limited to" phrase is an important one found in many laws. It means that ALL items in that category are allowed, not just those which are listed.
Does this mean that bagels, crackers, and granola -- examples of traditional bakery items which weren't listed -- are now not allowed? Or are they still allowed, even though they're not listed? Or were they never allowed in the first place, and the department is amending the rules to make that more clear?
Unfortunately Delaware's website provides zero additional guidance on what is allowed. My guess is they want the rules to be strict, but then allow certain products on an individual basis.
Anyway, this change in the rules might not have actually changed anything, but it's never good to see law language get more restrictive.

Overall, Delaware's law change is a good one, and bumps them out of the lowest ranking on Forrager's map. I still wouldn't call it a good law compared to other states, but at least it's an improvement!

Forraging ahead,

David