A guide for legalizing and regulating home-based food businesses in the 21st century.
About this document
The COOK Alliance hopes this model legislation and code will provide a useful guide for legalizing and regulating home-based food businesses in the 21st century. We have created these as open-source, living documents in the hopes that they continue to evolve alongside the growing home cooking legalization movement.
Currently, there are no standardized regulations to help guide states or regulatory officials in allowing cooks to prepare and sell meals from their homes. While several states have passed or are in the process of passing home cooking legislation (such as California, Utah, and Wyoming, the FDA model food code is silent on the activity.
The COOK Alliance is initially releasing two different documents, a model bill and a model regulatory code. Every state has different rules and regulations so these documents must be amended to integrate into relevant state and municipal laws.
These documents are offered under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license so that they can be used and edited by advocates and legislators.
Table of contents
Introduction
Home cooking and other local food production and consumption aren’t going anywhere. We need new post-industrial food system policies more than ever. Here, we introduce our framework for regulation of Home Cooking Operations, and why we believe this reform is essential.
Model Legislation
This model bill creates a framework for the inspection and permitting of Home Cooking Operations and the regulation of Online Food Platforms that serve as marketplaces for home cooks.
Model Code
Based on the FDA Model Food Code, this is a detailed set of regulations that right-sizes the food code for the home kitchen. It is for use by state and regulatory agencies to ensure appropriate safeguards and to add detail to the model legislation.