[dawhizkid]

Essentially a marketplace of homemade meals that can be shipped (frozen, uncooked, otherwise shippable). Delivering Mom/Grandmas cooking at scale. Amazing to think of all the food, especially ethnic food, that I can't otherwise get at a typical restaurant but have had at a friend's parents home or relative's home.

I live in an area with so many Chinese people, but can't find a decent dumpling restaurant. And frozen dumplings from Safeway don't cut it. I'm sure your average Chinese household within .5 mile radius from me makes 100x better dumplings than I could buy commercially anywhere near me. Would love to just buy a few dozen frozen dumplings from the best Chinese mom near me and give her a marketplace to do it.

[joeclark77]

I'm pretty sure licensing requirements would make it impossible. In my state, just selling raw vegetables at a farmer's market requires jumping through hoops of paperwork and inspections. Selling any kind of prepared food requires more. Some products are practically impossible for anyone except a large company to get permission to produce. Your Etsy of food would have to find out how to get all of its vendors trained, inspected, licensed -- a different process in each state -- and probably have to provide them with practical help in the logistics of refrigerated shipping, etc. My suggestion would be to focus on one metro area only, rather than try to create a national-scale dotcom business.

Alternatively, become an activist and change agent in the political sphere, and try to get some of these barriers torn down.