2020 New York Laws
AGM - Agriculture and Markets
Article 17 - Adulteration, Packing, and Branding of Food and Food Products
198 - Definitions.
§ 198. Definitions. 1. The terms "food" and "food product" shall include all articles of food, drink, confectionery or condiment, whether simple, mixed or compound, used or intended for use by men or animals, and shall also include all substances or ingredients to be added to food for any purpose. This definition shall be construed as including chewing gum. 2. The term "person" includes individual, partnership, corporation, and association. 3. The term "label" means a display of written, printed or graphic matter upon the immediate container of any article; and a requirement made by or under authority of this chapter that any word, statement, or other information appear on the label shall not be considered to be complied with unless such word, statement, or other information also appears on the outside container or wrapper, if any there be, of the retail package of such article, or is easily legible through the outside container or wrapper. The term "immediate container" does not include package liners. 4. The term "labeling" means all labels and other written, printed, or graphic matter (a) upon an article or any of its containers or wrappers, or (b) accompanying such article. 5. The term "advertisement" means all representations disseminated in any manner or by any means, other than by labeling, for the purpose of inducing, or which are likely to induce, directly or indirectly, the purchase of a food or food product. 6. The term "contaminated with filth" applies to any food or food product not securely protected from dust and dirt, insects and parts thereof, and from all injurious contaminations. 7. The term "food additive" means any substance the intended use of which results or may reasonably be expected to result, directly or indirectly, in its becoming a component or otherwise affecting the characteristics of any food (including any substance intended for use in producing, manufacturing, packing, processing, preparing, treating, packaging, transporting, or holding food; and including any source of ionizing radiation intended for any such use), if such substance is not generally recognized, among experts qualified by scientific training and experience to evaluate its safety, as having been adequately shown through scientific procedures (or, in the case of a substance used in food prior to January first, nineteen hundred fifty-eight, through either scientific procedures or experience based on prolonged use in food) to be safe under the conditions of its intended use; except that such term does not include:(a) a pesticide chemical in or on a raw agricultural commodity: or
(b) a pesticide chemical to the extent that it is intended for use or is used in the production, storage or transportation of any raw agricultural commodity: or
(c) a color additive: or
(d) any substance used in accordance with a sanction or approval granted prior to the enactment of this subdivision pursuant to the federal food, drug, and cosmetic act, the federal poultry products inspection act, or the federal meat inspection act. 8. The term "pesticide chemical" means any substance which, alone, in chemical combination, or in formulation with one or more other substances, is an "economic poison" within the meaning of the federal insecticide, fungicide, and rodenticide act as now in force or as hereafter amended, and which is used in the production, storage or transportation of raw agricultural commodities. 9. The term "raw agricultural commodity" means any food in its raw or natural state, including all fruits that are washed, colored or otherwise treated in their unpeeled natural form prior to marketing. 10. (a) The term "color additive" means a material which (1) 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 (2) when added or applied to a food is capable (alone or through reaction with other substance) of imparting color thereto: except that such term does not include any material which the commissioner, by regulation, determines is used (or intended to be used) solely for a purpose or purposes other than coloring.
(b) The term "color" includes black, white and intermediate grays.
(c) Nothing in paragraph (a) of this subdivision shall be construed to apply to 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 other natural physiological processes of produce of the soil and thereby affecting its color, whether before or after harvest. 11. "Game or wild game" means any deer or big game, or portions thereof, as defined in section 11-0103 of the environmental conservation law, taken by lawful hunting.
