Wyoming Food Freedom Act stirring controversy

Casper, Wyo.—A pending Wyoming Food Freedom Act (HB54) would give home canners, bakers and meat processors the right to sell their goods without the licenses, certification and inspections required of commercial food producers.

Introduced by Campbell County Rep. Susan Wallis (HD-52), the bill has been referred to the Agriculture, State and Public Lands & Water Resources Committee.

The proposed bill would bypass Wyoming’s comprehensive Food and Safety statute, which went into effect on March 13, 2000. It is a comprehensive “farm to table” statute that collected all food safety requirements into a single statute and consolidated the state’s food safety inspection activities in the Wyoming Department of Agriculture.

Casper-Natrona County Health Department Executive Director Bob Harrington spoke against the bill before a legislative committee. “If the law exempts home kitchens, there’s no way to intercept potential risks,” he said. Harrington is worried that chipping away at the “pitchfork to salad fork” approach with special conditions could put the public at risk for health problems that could range from E. coli to kidney failure or death.

When food is prepared at home rather than in a licensed, certified and inspected kitchen, Harrington said, there’s no way to control personal hygiene, hair from the animals that might be in the home, or whether the cleanser on the cooking pot or the pesticide from the garden was thoroughly washed off. Homemade food may not have a label or an ingredient list, so there’s a danger of unknowingly triggering food allergies, such as peanuts.

“If the ‘burrito banditos’ are selling out of the trunk of the car, we wouldn’t be able to intercept the potential risks or prosecute” under the proposed law, Harrington said.

Source: Casper Journal/Carol Crump