Following is a description of the event:
If you like your food local, organic, or from a truck, government regulation might be your biggest obstacle. American restaurants lobby to choke off food trucks, and federal regulation of food safety leads to more consolidation in the industry. Moreover, farmers markets struggle to survive under the heavy hand of government.
What if food safety regulation is not about limiting the germs in our dinner, but is rather about limiting competition in America’s food industry? What if federal and local rules actually protect incumbent businesses instead of consumers?
Join us for a panel discussion about food competition, regulation, and safety catered by the BBQ Bus food truck.The speakers included:
- Doug Povich, founding member of the Food Truck Association of Metropolitan Washington and owner of the Red Hook Lobster Pound food truck.
- Emily Broad Leib, director of Harvard Law School's Food Law and Policy Clinic.
- Baylen J. Linnekin, executive director of Keep Food Legal.
A video from that event can be viewed here. The event was part of AEI's Culture of Competition Project. This was the first event in that initiative.
Here is more about the event from Timothy Carney, a Visiting Fellow at AEI and a prominent figure in the Culture of Competition Project.
