June 27, 2023

Exploring the benefits of home-based food businesses in Washington State

Inequitable access to economic resources and employment opportunities plays a significant role in health disparities. In the United States, for example, women, immigrants and people of color face many barriers to securing high-quality jobs and financial security. As a result, marginalized communities may see benefits from unconventional careers like self-employment as a means of mitigating barriers such as access to higher education and professional networks.

To explore the potential benefits of self-employment, Will von Geldern, a Ph.D. student at the University of Washington Evans School of Public Policy & Governance, is researching the possible connections between low-income, self-employed, home-based food business owners and the social determinants of health with the support of a Population Health Initiative Tier 1 Pilot Grant.

Before arriving at the Evans School, von Geldern started a public policy advocacy program for Ventures, a local micro-enterprise nonprofit that helps small businesses. When working with Ventures, von Geldern saw that many business owners were starting home-based food businesses, but doing so in a way that did not necessarily consider applicable policies.

Specifically, many states in the U.S. regulate “cottage foods,” which are made in a home kitchen for sale. Washington home base food businesses may sell “low-risk” foods, which generally refers to shelf-stable foods that do not require much temperature or time control. These products can then only be sold directly to the consumer but not wholesale to restaurants and grocery stores.

In 2018, California created the country’s first Micro Enterprise Home Kitchen Operations (MEHKO) Program. This program allows people to operate a restaurant in their home kitchens, more than just “cottage food,” and thus requiring food handlers certification and other rules to protect public health and safety.

Inspired by MEHKOs in California, von Geldern decided to advocate for something similar in Washington while working at Ventures. However, he received a lot of pushback. “We heard a lot of feedback from public health stakeholders that these types of programs created a risk to public health, and we disagreed with many of those ideas,” von Geldern explained.

To address this pushback, his research team is currently focusing on the under-researched areas of food businesses – specifically businesses run by women, people of color and immigrants – to better understand the impact on health, asking, “Is there some kind of public health trade-off that happens with these programs where business owners who are successful or who are able to start these businesses in their homes, experience positive health benefits? And if so, how does that balance with any potential or real public health risks?”

Through the Tier 1 Pilot Grant, von Geldern and his team first focused on interviews. Their goal is to complete 60 interviews in total: 20 in Washington, where home cooking is largely not legalized, 20 in California with home cooks who have permits and 20 in California with people who do not have permits. von Geldern shared the team’s progress, noting, “We’ve done 15 interviews and about 10 of those have been with permitted home cooks. We have a small pipeline of unpermitted home cooks that we’re starting to work our way through. But it has been a challenge to build trust and relationships with unpermitted cooks. And that’s something that we’re continuing to work through.”

To establish trust and relationships before interviews, the team also partnered with two nonprofits through their Tier 1 Pilot Grant, “Thanks to the Population Health Initiative, we were able to provide funding to a nonprofit in California and a nonprofit in Seattle, for outreach help.” von Geldern said. “They have helped us identify and contact business owners. And that’s been absolutely essential to being able to have conversations with people about this topic.”

Going forward, von Geldern and his team are allowing the interview results to determine their project’s next steps. “It’s a really exploratory field of research where there is not a lot of published – or, to my knowledge – even unpublished research. So we need to hear what people are saying about their businesses and the perceived effects of their businesses on their health.”