With the veto of HB2509 it appears that the cottage food program will stay where it is for at least another year. Unless there’s a Strike All bill that expands cottage foods that satisfactorily address the concerns of the Interim ADHS director and/or the Governor, it appears we’ll be in stasis for the program and the 15,000 persons registered in the Cottage Food program.
In the meantime, is there an administrative fix that could responsibly expand the list of foods that participants can prepare that wouldn’t need a statutory change?
The answer is yes – but it would require ADHS Interim Director Cunico to be more generous with the list of ingredients ADHS considers to be acceptable under the existing program. Here’s how Interim Director Cunico could do that if she were so inclined.
See the list of foods/ingredients ADHS allows in the current program
ADHS adopted the FDA Food Code 2017 to govern food production and sale in Arizona. That document defines potentially hazardous food that:
“… require time/temperature control for safety to limit pathogenic microorganism growth or toxin formation… including an animal food that is raw or heat-treated… that is not modified in a way so that they are unable to support pathogenic microorganism growth or toxin formation…”
Determining which ingredients and foods that meet that definition is both an art and science.
There are certain ingredients – shellfish for example – that are clearly potentially hazardous. Many other meats also potentially hazardous – but others the current ADHS cottage food program considers potentially hazardous should more appropriately be called theoretically hazardous. The bottom line is that the current listing of ingredients the department considers acceptable is unnecessarily restrictive and can be expanded without requiring a statutory change.
My point is that ADHS should collaborate with the University of Arizona Food Product and Safety Lab and others to build a more generous menu of ingredients and combination of ingredients they’ll allow in the existing cottage food program. Such a revised list would be unlikely to include tamales, but many other foods could and should qualify.
Whether ADHS Interim Director Cunico is willing to do so is unknown.