Leo Qiu

The COOK Alliance is the nonprofit helping to legitimize the existing informal home cooking industry and legalize the country’s first permitted sales of home cooked meals (now known as “Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operations - MEHKOs”). We led the charge to ratify the country’s first home cooking business law, AB 626, which passed in California in 2018 and are now continuing this work across the country. We envision a world in which home-based culinary entrepreneurs, particularly from historically underserved communities, have meaningful, low-barrier opportunities to earn dignified, livable incomes through their small businesses and expand access to fresh meals and deeper, resilient community connection. We are working to legalize home cooking businesses and empower culinary entrepreneurs to be fully informed, define their own success, and enrich their communities. We are committed to ensuring these opportunities are accessible to all, particularly underserved women, immigrants, and people of color.