A group of state lawmakers are working to make changes to the Wyoming Food Freedom Act through an in-the-works bill draft. That’s in response to frustrations from small-scale producers and family businesses that feel overly restricted by some of the current regulations. The heart of the issue lies in what can and cannot be sold through designated agents.
The Joint Interim Agriculture, State and Public Lands & Water Resources Committee took a first go at the topic at a meeting in Riverton on June 12, with multiple hours of testimony from state officials, impacted producers and concerned citizens diving into how the act could be improved.
The Wyoming Food Freedom Act passed in 2015. It lets people sell certain homemade goods direct-to-consumers without a commercial license or inspection. A 2023 amendment also allows specific storefronts to act as designated agents, holding those homemade products in their spaces on behalf of producers.
A storefront using that format in Cheyenne got banned from selling certain meats by the state Department of Agriculture back in March. WY Fresh owners David and Tommie Kniseley believed they were operating lawfully as designated agents.
“We do not buy meat and resell it,” Tommie Kniesely told lawmakers at the June committee meeting. “It's clearly labeled which farm it comes from, that it is USDA certified, and the money is diverted at the point of sale directly to our farmers.”
A federal law currently prohibits designated agents or third-parties from selling uninspected meat. A federal effort to change that called the Processing Revival and Intrastate Meat Exemption Act, also known as the PRIME Act, is included in a version of the Farm Bill that recently passed the U.S. House but has not made it through the Senate.
BJ Edwards owns and operates a small-scale farm-to-consumer operation called Taste of the Wind outside Laramie. She was one of the producers whose meat was being sold at WY Fresh.
“Our Food Freedom Act is extremely critical to our state and we've seen much success and momentum gained in the local food sales space,” said Edwards, who is also the executive director for the Wyoming Food Coalition. “We'd like to be a part of that process of bettering this Food Freedom Act so that we can leverage our existing trust from producers and our existing good relationship with the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Health to make sure that this law better serves our small businesses, our agriculture industry, and consumers across the state.”
In April, state health inspectors told the Hippy Cow Creamery that it could no longer sell raw milk lattes at its storefront in Cody. The creamery was operating under the Food Freedom Act, but taking its raw milk and combining it with coffee was one step too far, according to Wyoming Department of Agriculture Head Doug Miyamoto.
“ Raw milk is eligible for sale as a farm product directly from a producer to an end consumer, but it can't be brought into a commercial food establishment or used as an ingredient,” he told lawmakers.
Mark Nelson is one of the owners of the Hippy Cow Creamery and said the “reasonableness kinda seems to have gone out the window” while talking about his interaction with a state health inspector to discuss his options on how to move forward with the lattes.
“At the very end of the meeting, the state health inspector said there's still no way that we can make raw milk lattes with our drink, with our product. We still would have to become a commercially licensed establishment and still have to use pasteurized milk,” he told lawmakers. “However, I could still go down to my house 300 yards away and make you a drink with our product and bring it back and sell it to you. That's completely legal.”
Nelson said the creamery is now making what it calls “freedom lattes,” which involves pre-packaging the lattes in their home kitchen and then bringing them to the storefront to sell.
The initial bill drafts brought to the committee by Rep. Steve Johnson (R-Cheyenne) would allow commercial businesses to sell raw milk, as long as the consumer is told in writing that the milk hasn’t been inspected or pasteurized.
Although the committee didn’t discuss any specific amendments to the bill draft at the end of its meeting, the plan is to keep working on the topic throughout the interim.
“We have a lot of great ideas here and we just need to work on this and make this a good bill and give Wyoming the food freedom that they're looking forward to,” said Johnson.
The committee will meet again in Casper on July 28 and 29 to discuss next steps.
