California’s home cooks given no seat at the table
AB 626 was meant to help immigrants. It may boost tech giants instead.
How many dumplings equal a “meal”?
I’ve personally pondered this question because the number of dumplings I want to eat rarely corresponds with the recommended serving size.
But this question also happens to come up when you read the text of California Assembly Bill 626, a new law decriminalizing the sale of home-cooked food.
The law, which took effect Jan. 1, allows home cooks to earn up to $50,000 in annual revenue and sell up to 60 “meals” a week after obtaining a permit, paying a fee and agreeing to inspections.
But I found the wording of the law’s provisions confusing. How many dumplings are in a meal? How many tamales? How many pieces of banh bot loc? And who exactly is going to be setting this dumpling-tomeal conversion rate?
The law, which was marketed as a boon for immigrant and low-income cooks, and passed unanimously last year, doesn’t say. The bill’s main author, Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia of Coachella, said it would “reclaim cooking as a means of economic empowerment for the people who need it the most.” Gov. Jerry Brown signed AB 626 into law last year along with the Safe Sidewalk Vending Act, which generally decriminalizes street vending. But after speaking to some immigrant home cooks in the San Gabriel Valley, I started to wonder whom AB 626 will really help, and how.
Cooks I spoke to say the $50,000 cap on revenue, especially after subtracting costs, doesn’t allow them to make a living wage. Others say the unannounced inspections that would come with permitting are unac-
ceptable amid an unprecedented climate of aggressive immigration enforcement. And most immigrant cooks I spoke to aren’t making “meals” as the law assumes.
More often, they are specialists who make beloved or hard-to-find items in bulk, like my favorite dumpling maker in Monterey Park, whose soup dumplings are so skillfully twisted that local restaurants sometimes buy them to serve to customers. When I discussed the new law’s restrictions with her, I realized it wouldn’t help cooks like her who have no other source of income.
The disconnect I felt has a simple explanation, said Christina Oatfield, policy director of the Sustainable Economies Law Center. She alleges that tech giants are the true beneficiary of AB 626 because the law contains regulations allowing for the sale of home-cooked food over the internet.
“This bill was really marketed as something that would help immigrants and people of color. The reality that I observed was that those immigrants and marginalized people weren’t at the negotiating table,” said Oatfield, who was part of the working group authoring AB 626 but left because the bill would not include specific language barring tech giants from the homecooked food space.
AB 626 was partly written by the founders of a tech start-up. Josephine.com, launched by Matt Jorgensen and Charley Wang in 2015, was a gig-based meal sales company that raised millions in venture capital.
Wang and Jorgensen say they were the anti-Silicon Valley start-up, focusing on offering value to the user rather than on growth and profit. For a 10% commission, they offered home cooks a customer base, marketing tips, free takeout containers, training sessions about food safety and certification, and even food photography advice. Entrepreneurs like Joe Acanfora and Hai Lam, who sell home-cooked Thai food in Emeryville, Calif., said that signing up with Josephine.com enabled them to earn a healthy side income and find customers.
After Josephine was eventually forced to shut down because regulators informed the company it was violating state homecooking laws, Jorgensen launched the C.O.O.K. Alliance, a nonprofit advocacy group for home cooks. He and Wang were eventually approached by lawmakers to help write AB 626.
Wang and Jorgensen say that protecting immigrant home cooks from tech giants was one of their main priorities. That’s why, Jorgensen said, they fought for provisions to the law requiring cooks to directly transact with customers rather than through a third-party service such as Uber Eats. But Wang acknowledges the possibility that tech giants could create an online, gig-based platform that dominates the homecooked food space and extracts profits from home cooks.
“If smart people aren’t working to counter those forces, that is a totally fair concern,” Wang said.
The final version of the law includes specific regulations for any web platforms that enter the home-cooked food economy — a legal pathway for the dozens of home-cooked food startups to enter the space. Airbnb even signed on as a sponsor to AB 626 and spent thousands to lobby on the bill’s behalf, most likely because the company is building home-cooked food into curated vacations, or “experiences” that Airbnb sells on its website.
AB 626 could give some home cooks the chance to launch a legitimate side business. Tech platforms could help cooks with payment processing, advertising, marketing or delivery — enriching Silicon Valley venture capitalists but also providing value to consumers.
But for immigrants working in the informal food economy, the bill offers little. Regulators at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health told me they aren’t exactly expecting a wave of applications from the beloved tamale vendors and underground dumpling entrepreneurs.
“This law is not intended to legalize unpermitted vending. It’s intended for small entrepreneurs who want to do things right and be safe,” said Veronica Petrosyan, a health specialist with the agency.
Now we’re left with the painful irony that a bill marketed as helping immigrants and people of color might actually help tech giants instead.
It’s a pity, because food regulations do affect immigrant communities. L.A. County has issued 843 violations for selling food from an uninspected kitchen since 2016, and the violations, though rare, have occurred disproportionately in neighborhoods with high percentages of foreign-born residents, according to a Times analysis.
Patricia Zhou and her mother run a home-cooked food company out of Hacienda Heights that takes in far more than $50,000 in gross revenue a year. She understands that selling the food without a permit is unlawful, she said. But so were ride-hailing services like Uber at the beginning, she said.
I thought it was an interesting comparison. Entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and the San Gabriel Valley both break or ignore rules to do business. But our government’s response to them is vastly different.
Airbnb violated residential zoning requirements and became a multibilliondollar company. Meanwhile, residential motels — unofficial hostel arrangements for budget travelers that have existed in Asian communities for decades — are unanimously labeled public scourges.
Forty-seven states have passed laws making it easier for Uber to operate, but taxi companies — which in L.A. are dominated by Armenian and Iranian immigrants — have been devastated.
Who gets to break the rules, and who gets to change them? So often the answer to both questions is tech giants.
A few weeks ago, thinking that the passage of AB 626 meant that I’d have some good news for her, I paid my favorite underground dumpling maker a visit.
She perked up when I mentioned her dumplings, remembered my call and invited me in.
An immigrant from Shanghai, she’s been operating the business with her sister for 10 years, but always in fear. She recently decided to open a restaurant so she’d feel less stressed out.
But she was still afraid of authorities cracking down. Even after I offered to keep her identity anonymous, she claimed no dumplings were made on-site, though she wore a stained apron and an industrial-sized bucket of soy sauce was within view.
The law won’t cover businesses like hers. She has more than one employee, and her business generates more than $50,000 in gross sales a year.
And then there was the question of how many dumplings were in a meal (she sells thousands in a week).
We both had no idea.