State legalizes selling home-cooked food
SACRAMENTO — Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill into law Tuesday that would allow people to sell food they make themselves, a practice that was previously outlawed due to health concerns.
Assembly Bill 626, which will go into effect Jan. 1, imposes strict guidelines for what it labels “microenterprise home kitchens,” or MHKs. Californians operating MHKs first will have to apply for a permit. After receiving a permit, they can run their businesses if they sell no more than 60 meals per week, deal directly with their customers and consent to inspections if local officials receive complaints.
The law also exempts MHKs from rules that apply to commercial restaurants but don’t make sense at home. These include a prohibition on kitchens opening directly to living spaces and a regulation that requires a three-compartment sink.
Supporters framed AB 626 as a social justice initiative, saying that the majority of the cooks whose work will be decriminalized are women, immigrants and people of color.
The bill’s author, Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia (D-Coachella), said he hoped AB 626 will open doors for those who have been shut out of the food industry, including single parents, disabled cooks and those who cannot afford to pay thousands of dollars to rent a commercial kitchen. “We want to create opportunity for business development, to be able to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to be their own business owner and do something that they are good at and something that they enjoy doing,” Garcia said.
Several medical organizations and county associations said the costs would be too great. They predicted that the risks of food-borne illness will be exponentially higher under AB 626, leading to expensive hospitalizations and even death.
The bill’s opponents said California’s cottage food law, which lets people sell nonperishables such as candy from home, already covers the foods that are safe to produce without professional training and equipment.
Californians who have sold home-cooked food, including Akshay Prabhu, disagreed. Speaking at a rally outside the Capitol last month, he said that he and his friends ran a pop-up diner in Davis, with a variety of offerings including homemade Chinese food and croissants.
“In March this year, we got shut down by the health inspectors,” Prabhu said. “Not for causing any sickness. It was just a preemptive strike on our operation.”
He added, “It’s been a long, difficult path for me to get into the food industry.”