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House committee advances cottage food updates, adds honey and maple syrup and rejects sales-limit amendment
Summary
The House Agriculture Committee approved technical and substantive changes to the state—s cottage food framework, reported House Bill 4,122 out of committee and advanced House Bill 4,245 to add honey and maple syrup; an amendment to raise gross-sales thresholds failed.
The Michigan House Agriculture Committee on March 20 approved technical corrections and policy changes to the state—s cottage food statutes and reported two bills to the House floor.
Representative Koontz—s technical amendment to House Bill 4,121 corrected a drafting error by changing the word "movie" to "meeting." The committee approved the correction on a roll call of 10 ayes, 0 nays, 0 passes and the amendment prevailed.
Representative Skaggs offered an amendment to alter a proposed change in the gross-sales threshold that would affect higher-risk cottage food products. Skaggs said the amendment "simply asks that we recognize this fact and act to make sure that products being sold at a higher rate ... are safe for consumers, and not exempted from the licensing and evaluation provisions that would be required at the higher dollar amount." The committee voted on the amendment and it failed on a roll call of 2 ayes, 7 nays, 1 pass.
After debate and correction of bill numbering during the hearing, the committee voted to report House Bill 4,122 out of committee with recommendations. The clerk recorded 9 ayes, 0 nays and 1 pass; the motion prevailed and the bill was reported to the floor.
Separately, Representative Alexander presented House Bill 4,245, which would bring honey and maple syrup into the cottage food framework and raise the gross sales cap consistent with the sister Senate bill. Representative Reinguez asked about adding other tree syrups; Alexander said the committee could consider a floor amendment or a separate measure. The committee voted to report House Bill 4,245 with recommendations; the roll call was recorded as 9 ayes and 3 nays, and the motion prevailed.
The committee read in supporting testimony and non-speaking supporters for the cottage food bills, including Mikaela (MDARD) (support, did not wish to speak) and Rebecca Parks of the Michigan Farm Bureau (support, did not wish to speak).
Ending: Both bills were reported to the House floor for further consideration; the committee did not adopt the sales-limit amendment proposed by Representative Skaggs.
