Hi there,

I usually use these emails to share good things about the cottage food industry.

I'll get back to doing that next week.

The story I'm sharing today is totally unprecedented. To my knowledge, nothing like this has ever happened before in this industry.

Recently, a woman in Iowa was raped in her home when someone came to pay for a cookie order.

You can read the whole story here -- it is very well-written.

The thing is, Justina could have easily crawled into hiding, or she could have shut down her cottage food business.

Both would have been perfectly understandable, but she did neither. She now has more business than ever, and I encourage you to check out her Facebook page!

But in addition to that, there is one other potential silver lining to this story -- namely, a rethinking of the requirement for placing a home address on labels.

Now that something like this has occurred, states may be more hesitant about requiring cottage food businesses to make their home address so public.

I get asked about this issue a lot, so I created a FAQ for it years ago. But because of Justina's story, I've significantly changed my stance about it. You can read my newly revised FAQ here.

Sorry this email is so solemn, but I think you'll agree that it's important and needs to be shared.

I'll be back next week with some much better news about the progress of the podcast!

David