DENVER — Democrats on Monday killed off a bill in the House Agriculture Committee that would have expanded Colorado’s cottage food law to include items requiring refrigeration, despite testimony in favor from constituents that progressives often claim as “underrepresented.”

Dubbed the “tamale” bill, Rep. Ryan Gonzalez, R-Greeley sponsored HB 25-1190 in an effort to help immigrant constituents, among others, sell food products made in their home kitchens direct to the consumer as a way to make additional money as Colorado’s cost of living continues to rise.

HB-1190 narrowly died 7-6 with all four Republicans on the committee, Dusty Johnson, Matt Soper, Larry Suckla, and Ty Winter casting yes votes, and joined by Democrats Matthew Martinez and Elizabeth Velasco.

The bill would have kept all current regulations under the Cottage Foods Act, while adding refrigerated foods to the eligibility list. Those regulations include;

• Foods should be packaged and labeled with specific information including an exact disclaimer prior to selling them directly to the informed consumer.
• Food products must be labeled with a disclaimer stating that they were produced in a home kitchen without regulatory oversight, state licensure or inspection and that the product is not intended for resale and may also contain common allergens.
• Product(s) must be delivered directly from producer to an informed end consumer and cannot be resold.
• Product(s) cannot be sold to restaurants or grocery stores.
• Product(s) may only be sold in Colorado.
• Producers may not make more than $10,000 a year on their products.

Gonzalez presented two amendments, one to ease some of the concerns over a fiscal note of $200,000 and another that was presented during testimony from two health department representatives over food borne illness.

The first would delay implementation of the bill until the state had the money to support its implementation. The other outlined additional requirements that including holding times and travel distance.

Out from the shadows

Gonzalez told the committee the language was taken from a similar law in Arizona, while Angel Merlos, strategic director for the Libre Imitative, told the committee Colorado is ranked second lowest in the county for its cottage food laws

“Foods are being made in the shadow outside the law right now,” Merlos said, adding many successful entrepreneurs today went from home sales, to food trucks to brick-and-mortar restaurants.

One of those, Alejandro Flores-Muñoz, a Denver-based caterer, testified that he watched his mother use a home-based business to feed her family as he was growing up, and it motivated him to do the same.

“As a DACA kid, I was told all my life what I couldn’t do,” he said. “When DACA legitimized me, I stepped through and became a food entrepreneur. Last year I prepared more than 70,000 meals though my business.”

Two county health department representatives testified they fear food-borne illness outbreaks from poorly prepared food. However, upon questioning from the committee they admitted there have been none to date that they were aware of, and that the food-borne illnesses that have happened occurred in licensed establishments.

The fiscal note of $200,000 is what the state estimated it would cost to mitigate an average of two food borne illness outbreaks a year, which Ellen Hamlett from the Institute for Justice said is a large assumption that is not supported by data.

“People who sell food from their home, take food safety very seriously,” she said. “Research shows that in states where a broader list of foods can be sold from the home, including meat products, there have been no reported cases of food-borne illness linked to their home-made laws, including Wyoming were there have been no food-borne illness linked to foods sold from home kitchens over the last decade.”

The bill is likely to come back next year, as many of the Democrats who voted no this year, said they support the idea, but felt it needed more work with such things as an enforcement mechanism if the regulations are not followed.

Rep. Mandy Lindsay, D-Arapahoe, told Gonzalez she would like to work with him to bring the bill back.

Gonzalez said he will continue to bring bills that represent the people he represents. Roughly half of House District 50 is made up of minorities, with a large portion of that being immigrant, Spanish-only speakers.