Virginia Law

The following words and terms when used in this chapter shall have the following meanings, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise:

"Action level" means the limit established for a deleterious substance present in a product or the environment, above which level prescribed actions by the division may be required to protect public health.

"Certificate of Inspection" means a numbered certificate issued by the division to a shipper after an inspection confirms compliance with applicable regulations and standards.

"Certification number" means a unique number assigned to each shipper upon issuance of a Certificate of Inspection.

"Certified laboratory" means a laboratory certified by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for analysis of food products.

"Critical Control Point" or "CCP" means a point, step or procedure in a food process at which control can be applied, and a food safety hazard can, as a result, be prevented, eliminated or reduced to acceptable numbers.

"Critical limit" means the maximum or minimum value to which a physical, biological, or chemical parameter must be controlled at a critical control point to prevent, eliminate, or reduce to an acceptable level the occurrence of the identified food safety hazard.

"Division" means the Division of Shellfish Sanitation of the Virginia Department of Health.

"Establishment" means any vehicle, vessel, property, or premises where crustacea, finfish or shellfish are transported, held, stored, processed, packed, repacked or pasteurized in preparation for marketing.

"HACCP plan" means a written document that delineates the formal procedures that a dealer follows to implement a Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point methodology to assure food safety.

"Hazard analysis" means a process used to determine whether there are food safety hazards that are reasonably likely to occur while repacking crab meat and to identify the preventive measures that the repacker can apply to control those hazards.

"Importer" means either the owner or consignee at the time of entry of the crab meat into the United States, or the agent or representative of the foreign owner or consignee at the time of entry into the United States, who is responsible for ensuring that goods being offered for entry into the United States are in compliance with all laws affecting the importation.

"Lot" means repacked crab meat that bears the same repack date and source code.

"Preventive measure" means actions taken to prevent or control a food safety hazard.

"Principal display panel" means the part of a label that is most likely to be displayed, presented, shown, or examined under customary conditions of display for retail sale.

"Processing" means cooking, picking, packing, repacking or pasteurizing crab meat.

"Processor" means any person engaged in commercial, custom, or institutional processing of crab meat, either in the United States or in a foreign country.

"Repacker" means a person who operates an establishment that transfers crab meat from a container originally packed by another establishment to another container.

"Repacking operation" means a process of transferring crab meat from the original shipper's packing container to a different packing container, including all steps beginning with the removal of the original containers of meat from the repacker's refrigeration and ending with the repacked crab meat in properly identified containers placed into refrigeration.

"Shipper" means a person who operates an establishment for the cooking, picking, repacking or pasteurizing of crab meat.

"Source code" means a code designated by the repacker which represents the crab processing facility where crab meat was obtained.