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Less morbidly/cynically, I wonder if this business model could extend to, say, the little old lady who likes baking pies and wouldn't mind some extra dough for her dough?

There's already this sort of market popping up on e.g. Facebook, but it revolves around pickup instead of delivery; combine it with a delivery network like those provided by these food delivery apps and you've got a killer recipe (pun intended) for one hell of a business model.

I'd imagine the big hurdle would be health code compliance, though.

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There was a big push in California over the past few years to build out regulatory structure for this. They even passed a bill [0] (NPR article) to enable it -- though they explicitly carved out third party delivery services.

[0] https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/01/17/685626391/se...

Honestly, more states need cottage food laws. I know Washington and Idaho, and minosotta for instance have what are called cottage food laws to allow such food. Certainly, other states I am missing, but I think that more states should have them.

Less Strict (Paper work not required but recommended) https://cdhd.idaho.gov/pdfs/food/CottageFoodsFAQ.pdf

Paper Work Still Required https://agr.wa.gov/departments/food-safety/food-safety/cotta...

-Edit- I do find it funny that the NPR article calls the bill "the first of its kind in the country". Washington (although much stricter than other states), and Idaho have allowed it for quite some time. Idaho even longer before being formally codified.

I think the distinction in California was that they are trying to broaden the definition of cottage foods. The Idaho link you gave is similar to what California had before -- generally non-perishable, temperature-safe foods (bread, jam, nut mixes, etc). California has allowed those for years. The new law was an attempt to broaden what home cooks could prepare and sell.

I just looked at the text of the bill you mentioned and yea it does go much further.

Although, it appears to allow third party websites and apps to process sales. Although such services must keep track of food safety complaints for home kitchen and if more than three report them.

However, there are restrictions on who can deliver food. Aka only family members or employee of the operation. So that pretty much makes someone operating as such unable to use delivery serivces。

Although, i dont see anything stopping a bread baker or some who produces low risk food from using such services.

also not legal advice.

Its not going to be little old ladies selling pies doing the vast majority of business on a platform like that.

Well yeah, obviously. But they don't need to be the vast majority of business on the platform. They just need to be on the platform in the first place.

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