Pennsylvania Code › Title 7 - AGRICULTURE › Part III - Bureau of Food Safety and Laboratory Services › Subpart A - Solid Foods › Chapter 46 - FOOD CODE › Subchapter A - PURPOSE; DEFINITIONS; ADOPTION OF MODEL FOOD CODE › Section 46.3 - Definitions

Current through Register Vol. 54, No. 28, July 13, 2024
The following words and terms, when used in this chapter,
						have the following meanings, unless the context clearly indicates
						otherwise:
Additive
-A food additive or a color
						additive.
Adulterated
-Food with respect to which
						one or more of the following is accurate:
(i) The food bears or contains any poisonous
					 or deleterious substance, which may render it injurious to health. However, if
					 the substance is not an added substance, the food will not be considered
					 adulterated if the quantity of the substance in the food does not ordinarily
					 render it injurious to health.
(ii)
					 The food bears or contains any added poisonous or added deleterious substance,
					 which is unsafe within the meaning of section 11 of the Food Act (31 P. S. §
												20.11). This subparagraph does not apply to a
					 pesticide chemical in or on a raw agricultural commodity, a food additive or a
					 color additive.
(iii) The food is a
					 raw agricultural commodity and bears or contains a pesticide chemical which is
					 unsafe within the meaning of section 11 of the Food Act, except that, when a
					 pesticide chemical has been used in or on a raw agricultural commodity with an
					 exception granted or tolerance prescribed under section 11 of the Food Act or
					 under any of the Federal acts and the raw agricultural commodity has been
					 subjected to processing such as canning, cooking, freezing, dehydrating or
					 milling, the residue of the pesticide remaining in or on the processed food
					 will, notwithstanding section 11 of the Food Act and this subparagraph, not be
					 deemed unsafe if the residue in or on the raw agricultural commodity has been
					 removed to the extent possible in good manufacturing practice and the
					 concentration of the residue in the processed food when ready to eat is not
					 greater than the tolerance prescribed for the raw agricultural
					 commodity.
(iv) The food bears or
					 contains any food additive, which is unsafe within the meaning of section 11 of
					 the Food Act or any of the Federal acts.
(v) The food consists in whole or in part of
					 any diseased, contaminated, filthy, putrid or decomposed substance or is
					 otherwise unfit for food.
(vi) The
					 food has been produced, prepared, packed or held under unsanitary conditions so
					 that it may have become contaminated with filth or may have been rendered
					 diseased, unwholesome or injurious to health.
(vii) The food is, in whole or part, the
					 product of a diseased animal or of an animal which has died otherwise than by
					 slaughter.
(viii) The food is in a
					 container composed, in whole or part, of any poisonous or deleterious substance
					 which may render the contents injurious to health, unless the container is
					 fabricated or manufactured with good manufacturing practices as that standard
					 is defined and delineated by any of the Federal acts and their
					 regulations.
(ix) The food has been
					 intentionally subjected to radiation, unless the use of the radiation was in
					 conformity with a regulation or exemption under section 11 of the Food Act or
					 under one of the Federal acts.
(x)
					 The food has had any valuable constituent, in whole or part, omitted or
					 abstracted therefrom.
(xi) The food
					 has had any substance substituted wholly or in part.
(xii) Damage or inferiority of the food is
					 concealed in any manner.
(xiii) A
					 substance has been added to the food and it is mixed or packed so as to
					 increase its bulk or weight or reduce its quality or strength or make it appear
					 better or of greater value than it is.
(xiv) The food bears or contains any color
					 additive which is unsafe within the meaning of section 11 of the Food Act or
					 under one of the Federal acts.
(xv)
					 The food bears or contains eggs processed by or egg products derived from a
					 manufacturing, processing or preparing method wherein whole eggs are broken
					 using a centrifuge-type egg breaking machine that separates the egg's liquid
					 interior from the shell.
Approved
-Acceptable to the Department
						based on a determination of conformity with principles, practices and generally
						recognized standards proven to be scientifically sound that protect public
						health.
Bed and breakfast homestead or inn
-A
						private residence which contains ten or fewer bedrooms used for providing
						overnight accommodations to the public, and in which breakfast is the only meal
						served and is included in the charge for the room.
Beverage
-A liquid for drinking,
						including water.
Bottled drinking water
-Water that is
						sealed in bottles, packages or other containers and offered for sale for human
						consumption. The term includes bottled mineral water.
CFR
-The most-recently published edition
						or revision of the
Code of Federal Regulations
, a compilation
						of the general and permanent rules published in the
Federal
						Register
by the executive departments and agencies of the Federal
						government.
CIP-Cleaned in place
-
(i) Cleaned in place by the circulation or
					 flowing by mechanical means through a piping system of a detergent solution,
					 water rinse and sanitizing solution onto or over equipment surfaces that
					 require cleaning, such as the method used, in part, to clean and sanitize a
					 frozen dessert machine.
(ii) The
					 term does not include the cleaning of equipment such as band saws, slicers or
					 mixers that are subjected to in-place manual cleaning without the use of a CIP
					 system.
Casing
-A tubular container for sausage
						products made of either natural or artificial (synthetic) material.
Certification number
-A unique
						combination of letters and numbers assigned by the Department or other
						shellfish control authority having jurisdiction to a molluscan shellfish dealer
						according to the provisions of the National Shellfish Sanitation
						Program.
Color additive
-A material which is a
						dye, pigment or other substance made by a process of synthesis or similar
						artifice or extracted, isolated or otherwise derived, with or without
						intermediate or final change of identity, from a vegetable, animal, mineral or
						other source and when added or applied to a food is capable, alone or through
						reaction with other substances, of imparting color thereto.
(i) The term includes black, white and
					 intermediate grays.
(ii) The term
					 does not include materials, which the Secretary, by regulation, determines are
					 used, or are intended to be used, solely for a purpose other than
					 coloring.
(iii) The term does not
					 include any pesticide chemical, soil or plant nutrient or other agricultural
					 chemical solely because of its effect in aiding, retarding or otherwise
					 affecting, directly or indirectly, the growth or otherwise natural
					 physiological process of produce of the soil and thereby affecting its color,
					 whether before or after harvest.
Commingle
-To combine shellstock
						harvested on different days or from different growing areas as identified on
						the tag or label or to combine shucked shellfish from containers with different
						container codes or different shucking dates.
Comminuted
-A food that is reduced in
						size by methods including chopping, flaking, grinding or mincing. The term
						includes fish or meat products that are reduced in size and restructured or
						reformulated such as gefilte fish, gyros, ground beef and sausage; and a
						mixture of two or more types of meat that have been reduced in size and
						combined, such as sausages made from two or more meats.
Conference for Food Protection
-An
						independent National voluntary nonprofit organization to promote food safety
						and consumer protection. Participants in this organization include Federal,
						state and local regulatory agencies, universities, test providers, certifying
						organizations, consumer groups, food service and retail store trade
						associations, and retail food facility operators. The objectives of the
						organization include identifying and addressing food safety problems and
						promoting uniformity of regulations in food protection.
Confirmed disease outbreak
-A foodborne
						disease outbreak in which laboratory analysis of appropriate specimens
						identifies a causative agent and epidemiological analysis implicates the food
						as the source of the illness.
Consumer
-A person, who is a member of
						the public, takes possession of food, is not functioning in the capacity of an
						operator of a food facility or food processing plant, and does not offer the
						food for resale.
Controlled atmosphere packaging
-A type
						of reduced oxygen packaging in which the atmosphere of a package of food is
						modified so that until the package is opened, its composition is different from
						air, and continuous control is maintained, such as by using oxygen scavengers
						or a combination of total replacement of oxygen, nonrespiring food and
						impermeable packaging material.
Corrosion-resistant material
-A material
						that maintains acceptable surface cleanability characteristics under prolonged
						influence of the food to be contacted, the normal use of cleaning compounds and
						sanitizing solutions and other conditions of the use environment.
Critical control point
-A point or
						procedure in a specific food system where loss of control may result in an
						unacceptable health risk.
Critical limit
-The maximum or minimum
						value to which a physical, biological or chemical parameter must be controlled
						at a critical control point to minimize the risk that the identified food
						safety hazard may occur.
Department
-The Department of Agriculture
						of the Commonwealth. The term is synonymous with the term "regulatory
						authority" in Subpart 1-201 of the Model Food Code, regarding applicability and
						terms defined.
Drinking water, potable water or water
-Safe drinking water as defined in the Pennsylvania Safe Drinking Water Act
						(35
						P. S. §§
												721.1-721.17). The term
						does not include water such as boiler water, mop water, rainwater, wastewater
						and "nondrinking" water.
Dry storage area
-A room or area
						designated for the storage of packaged or containerized bulk food that is not
						potentially hazardous and dry goods such as single service items.
EPA
-The United States Environmental
						Protection Agency.
Easily cleanable
-
(i) A characteristic of a surface that:
(A) Allows effective removal of soil by
					 normal cleaning methods.
(B) Is
					 dependent on the material, design, construction and installation of the
					 surface.
(C) Varies with the
					 likelihood of the surface's role in introducing pathogenic or toxigenic agents
					 or other contaminants into food based on the surface's approved placement,
					 purpose and use.