Home Kitchens Are Under Attack by Regulators

Americans are turning to home-cooked meals, but state regulators are making it harder for small food businesses to survive.

Inflation is one of the key issues for voters heading to the polls in November. And yet, despite sustained high food costs, Americans are actually eating out more than ever before. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports that close to 60 percent of American food spending is now outside the home—the highest it has ever been.

Part of the explanation for these trends is the COVID-19-initiated rise of delivery and takeout options, as well as the surging popularity of fast-casual dining. The USDA notes that "the pandemic led to shifts in how consumers bought food away from home, which lasted longer than the policies that initiated them." 

One of the most noteworthy food-related innovations to come out of the pandemic was the rise of platforms like Shef, which allows Americans to cook meals in their own kitchens and have them delivered directly to nearby customers. Platforms like Shef offer budget-conscious Americans home-cooked meals at the push of a button, often cheaper than traditional restaurants. 

Despite the benefits, Maine regulators are cracking down on home-based culinary entrepreneurs with surprise inspections. 

Rhiannon Deschaine of Kenduskeag, Maine began making and selling meals from her home-based business, Kenduskeag Kitchen, in April 2022—sourcing many ingredients from the family garden or homesteading neighbors. In July 2022, an official from the Maine Department of Health and Human Services dropped by Deschaine's house to conduct an unannounced inspection. While the inspector didn't find anything unsanitary or problematic about Deschaine's food preparation or meals, Deschaine was informed that Kenduskeag Kitchen needed to have a "food establishment license" to operate, which would, in turn, require her to install a full commercial kitchen in her home.

A letter of enforcement followed in October of 2022, and by December 2022, Deschaine shut down Kenduskeag Kitchen in the face of potential fines and enforcement action. Shutting down a business like Kenduskeag Kitchen is especially ironic in Maine, a state that recently passed a Food Sovereignty Act and enshrined a Right to Food in its constitution. 

The Food Sovereignty Act is supposed to ensure that the state government recognizes and defers to local ordinances that govern direct producer-to-consumer food pathways; in fact, the town of Kenduskeag has been supportive of Deschaine's business. The constitutional Right to Food asserts that individuals have the right to grow, produce, and consume the food of their choice, which again would seem to protect the very activity Deschaine and other home-based cooks are engaged in. 

Deschaine, with the help of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, is suing the state of Maine over the shutdown. Regardless of how the legal arguments shake out, it is a wild overreach for regulators to demand that home cooks install commercial kitchens to sell food to neighbors. Even predating the pandemic, home cooking businesses have grown in popularity as the so-called cottage food movement has taken hold.

However, as entities like the Institute for Justice (IJ) have tracked, many of these reforms remain limited to shelf-stable products like baked goods, thereby excluding perishable items like meat, vegetables, and many types of home-cooked meals. The problem is hardly relegated to Maine either as many states score even worse in terms of food freedom according to IJ's scorecard.

Concerns over home cooking leading to more food-borne illnesses or food poisoning on account of potentially improper food preparation methods have thus far been unfounded. To date, there does not appear to be a single publicized complaint that has made its way to mainstream media regarding food poisoning from a meal obtained on platforms like Shef.

As we hit the home stretch of the election, politicians across the country and political spectrum are replete with bad ideas for how to solve our nation's high food costs. Protecting home kitchens could help Americans stretch their food budgets while supporting local entrepreneurs.