Posted on 12/26/2014 12:05:20 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
BLAND, Va. — Virginians who try to sell homemade food from their kitchens are feeling the heat from state and local inspectors.
“I have to turn down my neighbors when they ask if they can buy pesto I make from my own basil plants,” says Bernadette Barber, a farmer in Lancaster, Va.
And this isn’t just a rural phenomenon.
In Arlington, government inspectors shut down a home-based soup maker, even though no customer complaints had been registered. Others have encountered similar fates, stripping them of needed income.
Legislation served up for the 2015 General Assembly would turn the tables.
HB 1290, sponsored by Delegate Rob Bell, R-Charlottesville, would end home-kitchen inspections on items produced for direct sale. The goods would bear a label stating that the products are not for resale and were processed without state inspection.
“If someone wants to buy food from someone, what business is that of the state?” asks Matthew French, a farmer in Bland, Va. “The state basically comes at you with a gun, and says you can only buy from state-approved supplier.”
The push for fresh, locally made food is gaining ground,” French told Watchdog.org in an interview. “Buyers want to know the person who’s preparing their food. People want it — and the state is getting in the way,” he said.
The Virginia Food Freedom Act is a follow-up to a Bell-sponsored bill that failed during the 2014 session.
Bell’s original legislation was pilloried by cattlemen, pork growers, the Virginia Farm Bureau and a phalanx of government regulators. Critics claimed that farmers would be hanging cows on front-loaders on the side of the road, French recalls.
“It was ludicrous,” he said.
To address industry and government concerns, Bell’s new bill allows for continued inspection of beef and pork at all venues.
French figures the move will enhance the bill’s prospects for passage. “Politicians are afraid of not getting the Farm Bureau’s support,” he notes.
In the long run, French believes small-scale provisioning has an advantage over industrial-scale agriculture.
“Big business is making a huge mistake getting in bed with government. It doesn’t end well for them,” he said.
Home Kitchen Nanny State PING!
Try to open a freekin hot dog stand or food truck.
They try do this in Los Angeles with food trucks but some of vendors are putting screw to LA Mayor Eric “Yoga Boy” Garcetti
I have a client who does make beautiful wedding cakes on the side from her “home-based kitchen.” Once I saw who she operated her “home-based kitchen,” there was NO WAY I’d ever recommend her to other people. It was astoundingly gross and I was surprised no one has ever gotten sick or if they did they figured it was some other food at the wedding besides the cake!
After witnessing her operation, I find it hard to hold it against people wanting some sort of inspection of the ‘home-based kitchen.’
Neighbor next door bakes bread for local sale. Her kitchen is the same gross, gross, gross way. She sometimes brings me her ‘artisan’ style breads to try. I thank her and then throw them away after she leaves. Ewww...
I have friends that have had their dairy shut down for selling organic.
You should see a USDA approved McNugget factory.
The solution for all of mankind’s ills is not more government.
Its less about food health and safety than big agro-business using its clout with government to squeeze the little guy out of business.
No wonder they don’t want any one else to compete with them on their turf.
I’ve heard of church bake sales being shut down by the government based on the same logic.
It would be nice if you told her so that she does not waste her effort, money and time on you.
Next, get rid of government home inspections altogether and turn the requirement over to the home insurance industry, such that if your home or a remodel thereof passes the inspectors hired by the company with whom you have home owners insurance, such that they’ll continue your insurance policy without any further work required on your house, then that’s all that matters.
BINGO!!
Yet, somehow, every WalMart in the West has Mexican ladies selling tamales in the parking lot. Made with ingredients bought with food stamps. But don’t let kids open a lemonade stand!
Friday night Amish Suppers? Out of the question.
This Cast Iron pan was not washed last night.
Little old lady fingers in bread and pastry dough?
OMG!! Call the feds!
Love door to door Tamale ladies, but they just feign ignorance if caught.
No Habla.
I swear I was raised with an Italian/Lebanese Family and that Woman NEVER washed a pot.
She just added to it constantly and it was always on the simmer 24/7
Was once at a Hamburg joint and my kid said why are these burgers so good?
Brother said, how old is this place? I said 1926
He said these grills have been seasoned daily for a donkeys age.
Another sign of an out of control government cabal.
EBH, you’d be missing the best here-homemade, unprocessed and free ranged food-nearly all of us make or grow something totally natural for barter or even sale-from the dreaded wedding cakes made in an actual kitchen to the horror of goat’s milk cheese, yogurt and soap. I grow veggies, make natural body creams and bake that poisonous bread from the stone-ground whole grain flour I buy from a mom-and-pop mill. My neighbor bakes wedding and other cakes and caters private parties. Bagged salad greens and sprouts you buy in the store are the most common carriers of e-coli and other nasty things, by the way...
When we were in high school and got jobs after school and in summer, 2 of my cousins turned down work in the family’s business-ranching and construction-and decided to drive to the city for a paycheck from a big meat packing plant that summer.
The stories they told about scraps ground up, potted meat, hot dogs, fake smoke flavoring that came in bottles, and all the rest were enough for me to embrace the way of not eating anything I can’t make a positive ID on, or know just where it came from, be it animal or vegetable-I still eat that way, I grow my veggies and barter or buy from neighbors or buy at the local butcher shop every chance I get.
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