According to Lisa Gansky at Shareable (an online community offering tips for a better life through sharing), home food businesses are back.
In August 2012, writes Gansky, the California State Assembly passed legislation to ensure legal status for “small-scale cottage industries that sell baked goods and other ‘non-potentially hazardous’ food items produced in home kitchens.
“We’re talking homemade cookies and brownies, jams, jellies, fruit pies, mixed nuts, flavored vinegars, dried teas, roasted coffee, and other yummy stuff that’s already legal in more than 30 other states. …
“The California Homemade Food Act … clears the way for home cooks in the world’s eighth-largest economy to make and sell a wide range of products without the need to invest in commercial kitchen space or comply with the zoning and regulatory measures that govern larger producers and producers of meat and dairy products.” Read more at the Christian Science Monitor.
What about food-business incubators like the wonderful one I visited when Suzanne was still living in San Francisco? I guess they will adapt. After all, some entrepreneurial food businesses do need a commercial kitchen. Read about the good work of San Francisco’s La Cocina here.
I also know of two Massachusetts incubators for food entrepreneurs that have helped to launch successful companies. One is midstate at the Franklin County Community Development Corporation, here. The other, CropCircle Kitchen, is in the Greater Boston area — Jamaica Plain.
Photograph: Lucas Jackson/Reuters/File
Butch Bakery cupcakes in New York City. California has joined more than 30 other states in allowing small businesses that make jams, jellies, pies, cookies, brownies, and other treats to operate out of the owners’ homes instead of requiring a commercial kitchen.
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 