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Food & Agr. Code, § 26661 · Article 5.5. Fresh Poultry

Food & Agr. Code, § 26661

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)

(a) (1) No person who processes, butchers, slaughters, packs, repacks, or sells poultry or poultry meat shall advertise, hold out, distribute, or sell as “fresh” any poultry or poultry meat whose internal temperature has been below 26 degrees Fahrenheit.

(2) No person who processes, butchers, slaughters, packs, repacks, or sells poultry or poultry meat shall label as “fresh” any poultry or poultry meat whose internal temperature has been below 26 degrees Fahrenheit.

(3) No poultry or poultry meat that is distributed or sold as “fresh” shall be stored or handled in such a manner that it reaches an internal temperature below 26 degrees Fahrenheit.

(4) No person who processes, butchers, slaughters, packs, repacks, or sells poultry or poultry meat may sell or distribute poultry or poultry meat if it is adulterated, misbranded, or if its labeling is false or misleading in any particular.

(b) No poultry retailer is guilty of a violation of subdivision (a) or of the regulations adopted pursuant to subdivision (c) unless the poultry retailer engages, with actual knowledge, in an act prohibited by subdivision (a).

(c) The secretary may adopt regulations reasonably necessary for carrying out this section, and those regulations shall be, insofar as possible, consistent with regulations adopted by the United States Department of Agriculture.

(d) Each prohibition in subdivision (a) stands alone and if any prohibition in subdivision (a) has been held, or in the future is held, to be unconstitutional, preempted by federal law, or otherwise invalid by any court, all of the other prohibitions set forth in subdivision (a) are intended to, and shall remain, fully effective and shall be interpreted to exclude the unconstitutional, preempted, or otherwise invalid prohibition or prohibitions. If any sentence, clause, word, or portion of this section is for any reason held to be unconstitutional, preempted by federal law, or otherwise invalid, that holding shall not affect the remaining portions of this section. The Legislature hereby declares that it would have enacted this section and each sentence, clause, word, or portion thereof despite the fact that one or more sentences, clauses, words, or portions of this section may be held unconstitutional, preempted by federal law, or otherwise invalid.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Amended by Stats. 1994, Ch. 106, Sec. 2. Effective June 16, 1994.

Source of truth

Edition
As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
Official file
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=FAC&sectionNum=26661.
Text hash
sha256 ac7be6d4afc959a29167a00eb176e0aa145a44fcd2c81575dd8d6e5fe038afe4
Composed by
compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section

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