Hi there,

Next Friday, I will be attending CookieCon in Reno! If you will be there, I'd love to meet up!*

But it reminds me, many people have been asking me if there will be another cottage food conference soon.

In case you're unaware, there was a national cottage food conference in 2021 & 2023. So now that it's 2025, and it feels about time to have another one.

But unfortunately, that conference will probably never happen again.

Lisa Kivirist (episodes 5, 50, 81 & 100) & John Ivanko (authors of Homemade for Sale) ran both of those very successful conferences, but last year they sold their farm and B&B and made a big move to Estonia. So understandably, they are no longer involved with the cottage food scene here in the States.

Running a national cottage food conference is something I've long considered, but it's unlikely to happen in the near future. It's well known that conferences are an excellent way to support and strengthen a community, but they are not a good way to make money. Given the amount of time and effort a conference would require, Forrager would need to be in a very stable financial position for it to be feasible.

However, as great as it would be to have a national cottage food conference again, fortunately there are national conferences for many food niches. CookieCon is one of the most popular, and recent podcast guests have talked about MallowCon and What's Popping Con coming up this year.

Also Minnesota's cottage food association has been leading the way by hosting annual conferences and monthly Zoom meetings. And Texas' cottage food association is very active and many of their members meet in-person for legislative efforts. Hopefully more states will follow suit and develop a strong state-level community as Minnesota and Texas have done.

But even if you can't get to an in-person conference this year, fortunately the internet provides so many opportunities to network. Cottage food entrepreneurs are better connected today than ever before! I don't think the internet will ever replace the value of in-person conferences, but it's helped bring us together in ways that were not possible even a decade ago. So I am grateful for that.

Forraging ahead,

David


* If you will be at CookieCon next Friday (3/28), please respond to this email and let me know!