For this Anchorage baker, the city’s newly loosened ‘cottage’ food laws ease the burden on business

With an apron tied around her waist and her hair in a long braid, Monica Janzen darted from bowl to mixer as she prepared berry tarts.

To make her long baking sessions more efficient, she customized her small Valley of the Moon apartment to fit her baking needs: a specially made butcher block counter, commercial kitchen racks from Costco and an extra freezer in her bedroom.

Until last month, Anchorage’s “cottage,” or homemade, food licensing requirements forced Janzen’s small business, The Moon Muse, to remain a hobby, she said. Gross sales from the gluten-free and vegan sweets she baked out of her home kitchen were subject to a cap — and the modest operation, to paperwork and fees imposed by the city.

The Anchorage Assembly in November voted to exempt small businesses that sell some shelf-stable homemade foods — like cookies, breads, jams and pickled vegetables — from the $25 licensing requirement. Anchorage’s rolled-back law now mirrors the state’s cottage food law passed in 2024, which increased the diversity of food products Alaskans can make in home kitchens and reduced the regulatory oversight on sales, according to the Alaska Food Policy Council.

Cottage foods are often made in a home kitchen, sold directly to consumers, and do not require time or temperature control — unlike meat and dairy products — to be safe to eat. Qualifying homemade foods are now “exempt from state permitting, licensing and routine inspection” in accordance with state law, according to an Oct. 7 Assembly memo.

After the state loosened its homemade food regulations last year, Anchorage’s existing licensing program created “confusion for vendors and unnecessary administrative work without a commensurate public health benefit,” according to the memo.

Assembly Vice Chair Anna Brawley, co-sponsor of the city ordinance, said it is a challenge to balance protecting the public’s health and not standing in the way of letting small businesses grow.

“In my estimation, this (ordinance) meets that mark,” she told the Assembly on Nov. 4.

Anchorage, in following the state’s lead, has opened up new opportunities for small businesses. The municipality, as of December, monitored more than 200 active cottage food licenses in Anchorage, according to Environmental Health Program manager Darcy Harris. Proponents of the ordinance said the rule change will save many small businesses like Moon Muse time and money.

“The real value here is helping people become full-fledged businesses by giving them that leg-up in the beginning,” Brawley told the Daily News on Dec. 8.

The new ordinance lets Moon Muse make third-party sales for the first time, allowing Janzen to sell to coffee shops. Cookies and sweets must have a label that clearly states it was made in a home kitchen and not subject to municipal inspections.

Preexisting cottage licenses in Anchorage required food sales made out of an individual’s home to remain below $25,000 per year. If business owners wanted to grow, they were required to operate out of permitted commercial kitchen space.

Few of these exist in Anchorage, Kirk Rose told the Assembly during a public hearing in November. Rose is the CEO of the Anchorage Community Land Trust, an organization that works with early-stage entrepreneurs through a program called “Set Up Shop.”

More than 60% of his clients are involved in food-based industries. Many start with business ideas that are grown out of home kitchens, he said.

“We simply do not have enough kitchen space in our community that is affordable or available,” Rose said. “This means Anchorage is full of food businesses ready and waiting to scale and grow, but are unable to do so because of current regulations.”

Building a business

Janzen recently moved into a larger apartment to increase the volume of Moon Muse orders she could fulfill. A few weeks out from Christmas, she stocked her fridge with Miyoko’s organic vegan butter and fresh berries for baking.

She makes occasional appearances at weekend holiday markets, but those often involve long hours on the road and hotel rooms, a “lot of work for small returns,” she said. Many of Janzen’s customers make preorders through her social media pages. This holiday season, customers chose from a selection of French macarons, hand-decorated cookies and gingerbread.

Janzen’s stand mixer and Ninja ovens have never seen flour, and once she made the commitment to bake gluten free, she stopped bringing bread into the house. That’s one of the problems that arose when she considered renting a shared space in a commercial kitchen to stay in compliance with past municipal code. She can’t keep her customers safe when there’s a risk flour is in the air, Janzen said.

Soy is her celiac equivalent. When she has accidentally eaten cross-contaminated food hidden in a soup base or meat at a restaurant, she would double over in pain within a half-hour.

“One of my bigger drives for keeping my products so strict on the allergens and the contaminations is I’ve personally been hurt by food,” she said.

Janzen said she believes the new exemptions will help her eventually save enough to build a gluten-free, celiac-safe facility in Anchorage. It will put her a step closer to baking full time, a goal she had when she moved from Seward to Anchorage in 2019 to create a business.

She still works at Snow City Cafe as a server and covers the early shift so she can spend the evening baking.

“I love my restaurant and working there, but I’ve had this dream for a while, and that’s where I want to go,” she said.