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Should home cooks have the right to sell food out of their own kitchens? Well, the Tamale Act under consideration in the Colorado legislature is one example from the food freedom movement now gaining nationwide traction. Colorado Public Radio's Rae Solomon has this story.
RAE SOLOMON, BYLINE: When Alejandro Flores-Munoz was a kid, he watched his mom build a little side business out of her home kitchen.
ALEJANDRO FLORES-MUNOZ: My mom would sell cheesecake and flan and sell it door to door.
SOLOMON: It wasn't anything formal, no business license. But as a new immigrant to the U.S. without work status, it helped her support her family. Flores-Munoz grew up to work in the food industry, just like his mom. But he's come a long way from her homemade desserts and is now the owner of Combi Taco, a catering business with seven employees in Denver, Colorado, that he built from the ground up.
FLORES-MUNOZ: Right now, we are in full production mode, cooking over 900 daily meals, seven days a week.
SOLOMON: That trajectory, home kitchen to the big league, is not easy to pull off. In most states, many home-based food businesses, so-called cottage foods, are illegal. Colorado law, for instance, prohibits selling food that needs refrigeration. Of course, people sell them anyway.
RYAN GONZALEZ: I see that, especially in my community. We have a lot of Hispanic population, and they do that - so burritos, tamales, tortas. So I see it, and I know it's common across all parts of Colorado.
SOLOMON: That's Ryan Gonzalez, the Republican state representative sponsoring the Colorado proposal to bring those DIY entrepreneurs out of the shadows. It's dubbed the Tamale Act after the tamale ladies in his neighborhood in Greeley, about 50 miles northeast of Denver. Gonzalez says legitimacy would bring them more economic opportunity, a path to build a strong customer base before going all-in on business investments.
GONZALEZ: This is a policy that will be a stepping stone for cottage food vendors to eventually start a business and get there and have a restaurant and participate, pay the taxes.
SOLOMON: The bill is moving through legislative committees in Colorado, though it's not clear if it will pass. And about a dozen other states are now considering different types of food freedom laws in some form, according to forager.com, a cottage food industry website. The trend is becoming a concern for public health officials.
SHAWNA JOHNSON: It will make people sick. We will see a rise in foodborne illness.
SOLOMON: Shawna Johnson works for Boulder County Public Health.
JOHNSON: My team is already stretched thin. There's reduced funding. People have been laid off.
SOLOMON: She says public health teams simply don't have the resources or the staff they'd need to respond to more foodborne outbreaks.
JOHNSON: It would be an environmental health specialist. It would be our epidemiologists. It could include the state lab. It could include our water quality team.
SOLOMON: But underground commerce is notoriously hard to study. So the real risks of the Tamale Act haven't been pinned down, and neither have the benefits. Though emerging research suggests legalization can spur real entrepreneurship. Colorado State University economist Dawn Thilmany.
DAWN THILMANY: For some subset of these businesses, they do become employers. They do grow out and become economically viable businesses.
SOLOMON: Viable businesses like Combi Taco, Flores-Munoz's successful Denver catering company. Daniela Rodriguez works there as a cook and on the side...
DANIELA RODRIGUEZ: I sell menudo, pozole. It's a Mexican food. Or asada - it's from Durango, Mexico. Is that where I'm from.
SOLOMON: She'd love to outgrow her home kitchen, head up her own legitimate business one day, just like her boss, if she can build up the resources to get there. For NPR News, I'm Rae Solomon in Denver.
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