Colorado’s outdoor food season is in full swing. Tamale tables are set up in parking lots, food trucks are rolling, and home cooks are selling burritos and tortas at street corners across the state. Almost all of it remains illegal under Colorado law — and the new law that changes that doesn’t take effect until August 12, two months into the season and weeks before the first frost.
Gov. Jared Polis signed HB26-1033, the Tamale Act, on June 4 as the final bill of the 2026 legislative session. The law expands Colorado’s 2012 Cottage Foods Act, which allowed home cooks to sell shelf-stable items like pickles, honey, and baked goods but banned anything requiring refrigeration or containing meat. Tamales, burritos, tortas, sandwiches, and salads — staples of Colorado’s informal food economy — have remained illegal to sell from a home kitchen since 2012.
The new law removes those prohibitions. Starting August 12, home producers may sell temperature-controlled and meat-containing foods directly to consumers, provided they complete a food safety course covering proper handling, time and temperature control, and safe transport. Sellers must register with the state, obtain a registration number, and keep proof of course completion on hand. Food cannot be transported more than once or for longer than two hours. Meat used in any product must carry a federal or state inspection mark, or qualify for a recognized exemption.
The law also raises the annual revenue cap from $10,000 to $150,000, adjusted for inflation going forward. County and district health agencies retain authority to inspect, impose fines up to $100 per violation, and recover investigation costs up to $1,000 if a product causes illness or injury.
Rep. Ryan Gonzalez, R-Greeley, introduced the bill in January without co-sponsors, naming it after the tamale ladies he watched sell from car trunks outside a bank in his neighborhood. House Majority Leader Monica Duran, D-Wheat Ridge, and Senate sponsors Robert Rodriguez, D, and Byron Pelton, R-Sterling, joined the bill as it moved through the Democratic-controlled legislature. It passed the House 10-3 out of the Agriculture committee and reached Polis’s desk as one of 436 bills signed from the 2026 session.
Colorado joins Arizona, Wyoming, and roughly ten other states that already permit the sale of some perishable home-cooked foods. Opponents, including Boulder County Public Health, argued the expansion will increase foodborne illness cases — Salmonella and E. coli among them — because home kitchens operate outside the inspection regimen applied to commercial food businesses.
The sellers working Colorado’s parking lots and street corners today built their informal businesses under the old law’s prohibition. The Tamale Act gives them a legal path forward — just not until the outdoor season is nearly over.
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