Senate Bill 199 (SB 199), the Montana Local Food Choice Act, will have a hearing before the Senate Public Health, Welfare and Safety Committee on Monday, February 22 at 3 p.m. To testify, you will need to sign up by noon on February 21.

SB 199 allows the unregulated sale of homemade foods from producers to informed end consumers including raw milk or cream if the producer keeps no more than 5 lactating cows, 10 lactating goats, or 10 lactating sheep on the farm for the production of milk. Producers can sell poultry under the bill if they slaughter and process up to 1000 birds during a calendar year. Producers can sell meat and meat products under the bill only if the slaughter and processing took place at a “state-licensed or federally approved meat establishment.”

Producers must inform the end consumer that the homemade food they are selling has not been licensed, permitted, certified, packaged, labeled or inspected per official regulations.

Sales and delivery under SB 199 can take place at a farm, ranch, home, office, “traditional community social event” as defined by the bill or another location agreed to between the producer and the producer’s agent and the informed end consumer.

Under the bill a state or local government agency cannot require “licensure, permitting, certification, packaging, labeling, or inspection that pertains to the preparation, serving, use, consumption, delivery, or storage of homemade food or a homemade food product under this chapter.” SB 199 does not prevent a state or local health officer from inspecting a producer selling homemade food under the bill if the “officer is investigating a complaint based on an illness or an outbreak suspected to be directly related to that homemade food or homemade food product.”

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