If You Want a Homemade Snack, Try Etsy
Feeling hungry? It might be time to skip Doordash and Grubhub and try a new online service for all your snacking needs: Etsy .
Yes, Etsy. An adorable place that most people go to to buy trinkets and homemade copies of copyrighted works – I’ll never know why Disney didn’t sue Etsy – also, obviously, hobby bakers are about to ditch their delicious wares.
I admit I don’t really like Etsy, but to make sure I’m not a complete newbie, I asked some of the Lifehacker staff if they knew that this “food on Etsy” thing really existed. They didn’t, so I’m guessing you might not know either.
Etsy doesn’t have a baked goods category. Indeed, nothing on the home page of the site gives the slightest impression that it is possible to buy food on it. Photos of food? Certainly. Crocheted corn on the cob? Absolutely. Something tasty to put in your mouth and swallow to get the energy you need for your daily life? No.
However, do a quick search by category and the buffet will open:
You probably won’t see anything super perishable or otherwise on Etsy that requires some fancy refrigeration tweak for shipping. In other words, no homemade ice cream, chicken nuggets or pizza are staples of any strict quarantine diet. Delicious homemade bread seems like a great option on Etsy, but you can always make your own if you don’t feel like buying someone else’s creation . Buy yourself yeast and let it explode , or buy someone else’s leaven and get down to business . Your call.
Or you could just say hell with all of this; it’s too much work and I’d rather dip into a giant homemade marshmallow or a matching snack . There is also my favorite:all gummies, without exception . However, if you live a bit of the wilderness, there are tons of delicious hot sauces on Etsy. (I’ll pass.)
Homemade goods can be tasty, but unsafe
There are some concerns about food shopping on Etsy. At this point, it doesn’t appear that Etsy is using any kind of verification method – if any – for sellers to prove that they are complying with their state’s laws for producing and selling food. For example, Californians can produce and sell food from their homes whatever they want without verification, and even do so over the Internet. However, the buyer must collect it directly from you; you cannot send it. If you’re an Oklahoma baker looking to trade on Etsy, well, good luck .
As an Etsy spokesperson told me, “Etsy is not a dedicated marketplace or jury, which means that anyone can post anything on the site, at any time. However, when sellers open a store or post a product on Etsy, they agree to abide by our site’s policies and conditions , as well as international, federal, local, and national laws (including local laws regarding the sale of food and edible goods). … We remove products and stores that do not comply with our site’s policies as we learn and apply that policy on a daily basis. “
To be honest, I don’t really care about people selling whatever they want from home. But you will not have the opportunity to find out how a person’s home kitchen works: how clean and hygienic it is, whether food is prepared on the basis of other foods to which you may be allergic, how long an object has been idle. before they sold it to you, and so on. And while this is true in some way for any food you buy online, I would feel a little better buying a brownie from a regulated and trusted company than in some random person’s kitchen.
And that only gets worse given the insane times of the pandemic we’re living in right now. So, while you might be a little against buying Mom’s Delicious Chocolate Chip Cookies on Etsy right now, this is something you might want to mentally bookmark and come back when COVID-19 dies down a bit – a vaccine or something. more. But if fears about home-cooked food don’t bother you and you feel a bit too bite, watch out for the arts and crafts site’s secret menu.