In late February of this year California State Assembly member Cheryl Brown introduced AB 2593, a bill to legalize the sales of homemade food, including hot meals, within certain limits. The bill would provide a dramatic expansion of California citizens’ ability to legally sell homemade food. If you are receiving this message, you are likely a supporter of the California Homemade Food Act, a.k.a the cottage food law, authored by Assemblymember Mike Gatto or other food-related policy campaigns that SELC has led. So we wanted to let you know about this new bill, although SELC is not sponsoring or supporting it at this time.

Assemblymember Brown’s new bill is sponsored by a web startup company called Josephine, which is headquartered in Oakland, California. Although homemade meals have been shared in many ways for millennia, recently there has been a growing trend of purchasing homemade meals through websites that advertise the sale of meals and facilitate payment processing. Josephine operates one such website. California law (like other state laws) does not allow these these types of transactions, but many of them are happening anyway. The proliferation of websites selling meals has the potential to grow the popularity of buying homemade meals - something many of us in the food movement are excited about - but this also raises concerns for us here at SELC when we think about what happens when tech companies spur rapid new trends that defy consumer protection or public safety laws.

To discuss all of the above, SELC and Josephine will be hosting a town hall style event together on Wednesday, April 20 in Oakland and we’d like you to join us!

Event details:

Date: Wednesday, April 20

Time: 6:30 to 8:30pm

Location: Oakstop Coworking + Event Space, 1721 Broadway #201, Oakland, CA, 94612

RSVP: Please! At this LINK