To: The New York State House, The New York State Senate, and Governor Andrew Cuomo
Cottage Food Law for New York: A "Pickle" Bill
This petition requests your signature to ask the State of New York to pass a "Cottage Food" law/ "Pickle" law similar to the State of Connecticut, allowing farmers to preserve and bake the food they grow and sell direct to the customer without having to meet the same requirements as a licensed, commercial kitchen/bakery with no net annual sales limit.
Why is this important?
I am a small scale farmer in Sullivan County. I would like to legally preserve and sell direct to customers the foods that I don’t sell fresh. Currently I would have to use a certified kitchen do this. A certified kitchen is expensive to build or rent. When food is preserved with a ph. of 4.6 or less there is almost no chance of pathogens surviving the preserving process. Selling preserved foods direct to the customer at farm stands or farmers markets would benefit the farmer and customer by providing value added products for the farmer and providing local healthy less expensive food alternatives.