
How Etsy became America’s unlikeliest breadbasket - juokaz
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-etsy-became-americas-unlikeliest-breadbasket-11589601602
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dakna
Unfortunately, most states restrict online sales under the cottage food law
due to safety concerns. The article portraits a seller in West Virginia, and
it was just in 2019 that a change in their cottage food regulations made it
possible to take online orders and ship food. I hope more states will take a
look at this and check if this is a successful model they could apply too.

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amelius
How is it that companies like Uber and AirBnB can get away with breaking laws
and ignoring regulations, while Etsy can't?

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loceng
Arguably it's safety related - arguably it's also food industrial complex
actively suppressing it to prevent the competition.

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Ow934
I would guess more of the latter.

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ipsum2
> From 2013 to 2018, 10 states passed so-called “cottage food laws” allowing
> home bakers to legally sell their goods in a variety of venues, including
> online, says Emily Broad Leib, faculty director of the Harvard Law School
> Food Law and Policy Clinic. Many other states amended existing food laws.

I wasn't aware of this, I thought you needed to have a licensed kitchen. Neat!

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dghughes
No not neat.

My cousin is a restaurant inspector and the horror stories she has told even
for professional kitchens is unbelievable. The apathy and greed of some is
going to kill people some day.

Rice is one of the worst foods. Your choice is to keep it super hot or in a
flat tray and chilled. There's a natural bacteria that grows if the rice is in
a bowel and isn't hot anymore. I looked it up: bacillus cereus.

Soap is another it's incredible how many kitchens have no soap. The inspector
arrives and then there is a scramble to find some soap. But it makes you think
how many people had a crap and just went back to work without washing their
hands with soap.

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Dylan16807
Like it or not, people are eating mass amounts of home-cooked zero-inspection
food every day. Letting a little bit of that get sold for profit isn't a major
risk.

> Rice is one of the worst foods. Your choice is to keep it super hot or in a
> flat tray and chilled.

These laws generally apply to shelf-stable foods. So not rice.

> Soap is another it's incredible how many kitchens have no soap. The
> inspector arrives and then there is a scramble to find some soap. But it
> makes you think how many people had a crap and just went back to work
> without washing their hands with soap.

Isn't that the exact kind of problem that would be _less_ likely in a home
environment?

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RangerScience
> Letting a little bit of that get sold for profit isn't a major risk.

This sounds _exactly_ like the sort of thing where statistics are how you get
an answer. And, googling a bit, there's answers. Or at least details.

At some point, all food was like this, and AFAIK that day was at least as
recent as the 1800s. Right? I wonder when the first time a "food inspector"
(in the modern sense) was a thing.

~~~
Retric
It’s much older than that, food standards go way back. England’s rather famous
Assize of Bread and Ale regulating quality dates to 1266. There is likely
thousands of years of history around bakers or brewers trying to save money
and laws or customs designed to regulate it.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assize_of_Bread_and_Ale](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assize_of_Bread_and_Ale)

That said, the knowledge of pathogens is relatively recent ~1670s which ended
up changing many rules. Historically food safety was a major issue that killed
a lot of people. But, it’s not really something most people know much about.

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subpixel
About 5 years ago a Russian waitress at a restaurant in Queens revealed to me
a vast non-English network of home cooks in the NYC area selling their wares
on Facebook.

I’m pretty sure that channel got shut down but am pleased to think they have
found others that still work.

If and when it becomes legal it’s a really interesting market.

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LyndsySimon
Facebook has a ton of hidden/private groups selling things. I know of several
local to me, and I’m in a fairly rural area. All of them violate Facebook
policy, and some are outright illegal. It’s interesting to watch!

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swiley
I’m always surprised finding illegal stuff on facebook.

It’s strange that

1) people think facebook is a good platform to do these things on

2) they don’t get shut down and handed over to the police

People keep asking for online surveillance to prevent this but in the places
we already have it (eg. facebook) crime often isn’t stopped.

~~~
alacombe
> 2) they don’t get shut down and handed over to the police

Do you mean the same police defeated over and over in the war on drugs should
be dispatched to put a 70 years old grand'ma trying to make a few $$ selling
an apple pie on Facebook.

People are not asking for online surveillance, elected (and non-elected)
official are trying to put in place the level of surveillance you're
mentioning to secure their power. But I totally understand that the barter
economy is acting against their plan.

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neonate
[https://archive.md/ZT3fN](https://archive.md/ZT3fN)

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holidayacct
I wonder when Etsy will stop firing employees without severance packages and
blackballing them in technology for months to years because they ask too many
questions.

~~~
thawaway1837
I’ve never heard of any company that has fired someone (which usually implies
that it was with cause, as opposed to a lay-off, which does not imply a cause,
but rather that the company needed to do cost cutting) giving them a severance
package.

And I really doubt Etsy has the clout to blackball anyone in the technology
industry.

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tomohawk
In our county, you are not allowed to make home made baked goods for school
functions (classroom birthday party, or whatever). Only choice is to send in
baked goods from walmart or whatever. The concern seems to be food allergens.

Go figure. Many people make food at home because they cannot eat the stuff
produced commercially, or want a healthier alternative.

In the US, soybeans are ubiquitous in baked goods (vegetable oil is usually
soybean oil), and they're a top 5 food allergen. It is rare to find
commercially baked goods that do not have them.

When did getting food from strangers with ingredients you can barely pronounce
become safer than from your neighbor?

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gbear605
Probably at the same time that people realized that have barely pronounceable
ingredients is better than having entirely unknown ingredients that inevitably
wind up giving a kid a severe allergic reaction.

The pronounceability of a name doesn’t make it safer. Compare dihydrogen
monoxide (water) to dihydrogen dioxide (H2O2, a toxic chemical).

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pkaye
I wonder how they make biscuits that hold their quality through shipping?

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solidsnack9000
Seal them in a bag in a bag with a desiccant pack.

A wide range of nice cookies and crackers get shipped out of Japan to the USA,
individually wrapped and then sealed in a bag with desiccant, and keep
perfectly well for months as long as they are in the package. As soon as you
unpack them they go stale like everything else.

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milin
Can we stop posting links that require a paywall?

