(a)  It is unlawful for any person to sell, offer for sale, advertise, or label any product in violation of this article.

(b)  Notwithstanding subdivision (a), a person engaged in business as a distributor or retailer of products who in good faith sells, offers for sale, labels, or advertises any product in reliance on the representations of a producer, handler, or other distributor that the product may be sold as organic, shall not be found to violate this article unless the distributor either: (1) knew or should have known that the product could not be sold as organic; (2) was engaged in producing or processing the product; or (3) prescribed or specified the manner in which the product was produced or processed.

Terms Used In California Health and Safety Code 110890

  • Handler: means any person engaged in the business of handling agricultural products, but does not include final retailers of agricultural products that do not process agricultural products. See California Health and Safety Code 110815
  • Person: means any person, firm, association, organization, partnership, business trust, corporation, limited liability company, or company. See California Health and Safety Code 19
  • Processing: means cooking, baking, heating, drying, mixing, grinding, churning, separating, extracting, cutting, fermenting, eviscerating, preserving, dehydrating, freezing, or otherwise manufacturing, and includes packaging, canning, jarring, or otherwise enclosing food in a container. See California Health and Safety Code 110815
  • Sold as organic: means any use of the terms "organic" "organically grown" or grammatical variations of those terms, whether orally or in writing, in connection with any product grown, handled, processed, sold, or offered for sale in this state, including, but not limited to, any use of these terms in labeling or advertising of any product and any ingredient in a multi-ingredient product. See California Health and Safety Code 110815

(Amended by Stats. 2002, Ch. 533, Sec. 61. Effective January 1, 2003.)

  Previous section
Next section  
 Article 7 Contents