160-q. Grades and branding. 1. The commissioner is hereby authorized and empowered, after investigation and public hearing, to fix and promulgate official standards including good delivery standards enroute or at destination for grading and classifying lettuce packed or repacked within the state, and to change any of them from time to time. In establishing such standards he shall, among other things, take into account so far as applicable the factors of maturity, condition, solidity, color, size, temperature control and freedom from defects and injury. The official standards so fixed and promulgated shall not be lower in their requirements than the minimum requirements of the official standards for corresponding grades of lettuce as promulgated from time to time by the secretary of agriculture of the United States, which standards are commonly known as the "United States grades".
2. Each closed package of lettuce, when sold, exposed for sale or transported for sale, shall be plainly and conspicuously branded to show:
a. That such lettuce is "cull lettuce", if such is the fact.
b. Number of heads.
c. That the package was vacuum cooled if such be the fact.
d. Name and address of packer or repacker.
The cull identification requirement of paragraph a of this subdivision shall not apply to closed packages of lettuce which are being held for sale at retail in the retailer's own storage facilities or which are being transported from such storage facilities to stores operated by such retailer.
3. In case the branding upon any closed package of lettuce is changed, the person making the change shall cancel the name and address of the original packer and substitute therefor his own name and address.
Last modified: February 3, 2019