Hi there,
FINALLY.It has happened.
We kind of said it happened a year ago, but
that was only a half truth.
Now, it has actually happened, for real.
And that is this:
ALL STATES HAVE A COTTAGE FOOD LAW!Now you might be thinking, "Wait a sec... wasn't
New Jersey the final state to get a cottage food law? Didn't that happen last year?"
Well, yes... kind of.
If we want to get technical, every single state has had a cottage food law for the past year.
BUT one state's law was practically unusable.And that state was Rhode Island.Rhode Island only allowed farmers to sell homemade food. And by "farmers", we're not talking about just anyone who grows produce in their backyard. To be considered a "farmer" (and use the law), you had to sell at least $2,500 of ag products per year.
In other words,
99.8% of residents couldn't use the law.
But thanks to
H 7123, all of that has changed.
Rhode Island now has a new cottage food law!And
as of next Tuesday (Nov 1), the health department can start issuing cottage food permits.
Now, I'm not saying that their new law is the best ever. In fact,
it's not all that great.
BUT it's
approximately 1000x better than what they had before, so I'd say there's not much to complain about.
Instead, let's celebrate! Congrats Rhode Island!
David
P.S.
Big shout out to The Institute for Justice who advocated for (and announced) this law change! For reasons I'm still not privy to, the legislators took the language from the bill that I had been tracking (H 7909) and thoroughly buried it in a huge budget bill, so there's none chance I would have found it on my own.
P.P.S. Since 2018 (when Kentucky changed their law), Rhode Island has been the lone state to have the "Restricted" status on
Forrager's map. With New Jersey's new law last year, I finally removed the "None" status, and
now we can say goodbye to the "Restricted" status as well!