In the 1970s, my mother encouraged me and my sister to bake cookies and breads and sell them at our family’s booth at the Champaign farmers’ market so that we could earn money for college. For the last several years I have watched Alexandra Wright do the same thing at the Market at the Square in Urbana.
But as good as Wright’s peach muffins and blonde brownies are, I won’t be buying them from her this year. And neither will you. Wright is one of a handful of vendors who will not be able to sell home baked goods at Market at the Square this year due to a sudden policy change enacted by Jim Roberts, environmental health director of the Champaign Urbana Public Health District.
Roberts says he was prompted to review the district’s policy on farmers’ market food sales after he participated in a January 2009 panel discussion hosted by the Land Connection and University of Illinois Extension. (You can watch the nearly two hour video here). However, Roberts did not inform any vendors he was revising the district’s guidelines until this past week, long after they had paid their market rent and purchased supplies. In one case, that meant something to the tune of 500 pounds of flour.
On April 11, many of the market’s home bakers received letters from Roberts’ office informing them that only baked goods from certified kitchens could be sold at the market.
Even more, while many bakers received the letters from Roberts, not all did. Some craft vendors also received the letters by mistake. But, the most glaring oversight in the agency’s dissemination of this news was not informing Market at the Square, and Smile Politely contributor, director Lisa Bralts. Bralts found out from one of the baking vendors just prior to a farmers market meeting last Monday night. She had to contact the agency on Tuesday to receive the new guidelines.
To achieve certified status and comply with the new guidelines, home bakers would have to install a three-compartment sink with three-foot drainboards on either side. (Note: Champaign County is the only county in Illinois to require this.) Depending upon the design of their homes, they may have to install an entirely separate kitchen, or use/rent a restaurant or other certified kitchen in off hours. Some in the community have already begun to reach out: Harold Allston of The Great Impasta has generously offered his kitchen to the market’s home bakers for use between midnight and 6:00 a.m. on Saturdays, and more are sure to follow. And while this will work for the majority of baked goods — cookies, muffins, scones, pies, and short-rise breads — it isn’t compatible for long-rise artisan breads. And, in Alexandra’s case, it isn’t compatible with her bedtime.
Why the sudden change after the agency has allowed baked goods at Champaign-Urbana farmers’ markets for decades? Roberts says he was not prompted by any food poisoning incident. To his knowledge, no one has ever become ill from baked goods at the Market at the Square. “Our guidelines were not consistent with those of the Illinois Department of Public Health food code,” he explains.
However, the district’s guidelines have been inconsistent with the IDPH code for nearly a decade. IDPH revised its code in 1999. In revising the district’s guidelines, Roberts spoke with his counterparts in other counties to see what they were doing.
One of those counterparts was Kolby Riggle, Vermilion County director of Environmental Health. Says Riggle, “What we have a problem with is someone operating out of their own household kitchen, then they are competing with people who have gone through the expense of setting up a [certified] kitchen and having it inspected.”
Riggle banned home baked goods at Vermilion County farmers’ markets long ago. “Farmers’ markets have grown into a carnival where they want to sell all sorts of items and that’s where the problem lies as far as I’m concerned.”
To hear Riggle tell it, home baked goods are something like gateway drugs. “We’ve had people having bake sales in their front yards, saying they are just selling soft drinks to the neighborhood kids. They’ll have cookies one week. Then the next week they’ll have hot dogs and then sloppy joes.” When asked how many of these cases he’d seen in his three-decade career, Riggle responded, “Four or five.”
It is worth noting that it is still possible for a non-profit organization to obtain a permit for a bake sale featuring home baked items. This begs the question: why is an agency charged with protecting citizens’ health, ostensibly on the basis of science, obsessed with capitalism? If you can safely sell cookies from an uncertified kitchen for charity on one day, why would it be unsafe to sell them from the same kitchen for profit for a dozen Saturdays in a row?
Bralts says she would like to see the CUPHD develop a standard specifically for farmers markets.
However, this is unlikely without a change at the state level. Illinois Department of Public Health code only allows farmers’ market baked goods to be sold from certified kitchens. Individual health departments are free to be stricter than the state code, but not less so, explains Denise Gaines, chief of the agency’s Governmental Affairs division.
Because there is not a unified code, and because some counties share health departments, this means there is the potential to have over 90 sets of market regulations. Frustrated by the myriad of regulations, and the fact that the Department’s code hasn’t been updated in ten years, Illinois State Senator David Koehler (D – 46th District) introduced a bill, SB1494, that would give the state one set of market regulations.
The bill’s biggest opponent? The Illinois Department of Health. According to Gaines, the Department was opposed to SB 1494’s provisions for farmers’ market sales of jams, jellies, and honey. “We simply don’t have enough people to monitor [the jams and jellies],” she says.
Though it was shelled as an amendment to the Arthritis Prevention, Control, and Cure Act, Koehler’s staff has been working on revising SB 1494’s language and it could hit the floor as early as tomorrow.
But, before you get your hopes up for the return of Alexandra’s peach muffins, realize that there are only six days left in the legislative session. And while Senator Koehler may be willing to fight for jam at farmers’ markets, his bill contains no provisions for home baked goods. In addition to being a state senator, Koehler is co-owner of the Peoria Bread Company.