Regulation 22 prohibits the sale, or offer for sale, in interstate or foreign commerce or in the District of Columbia or in any Territory of the United States, of a food or drug product which bears no label whatever if said product be an imitation of or offered for sale under the name of another article. It would clearly be a violation of the law to sell an article which was made in imitation of chocolate, even though it be sold under the general name of a confection. Such an article should be labeled in such a manner as to correctly represent its true nature.
Regulation 25 (a) provides:
When a substance of a recognized quality commonly used in the preparation of a food
or drug product is replaced by another substance not injurious or deleterious to health, the
name of the substituted substance shall appear upon the label.
It is held that cocoa butter is the only fat that can be used in chocolate. The declaration
of foreign fats merely as "substitute butter" is apparently not sufficient; the nature of the
fat employed should be stated.
James Wilson,
Secretary of Agriculture.
Washington, D. C., March 25, 1907.
(F. I. D. 62.)
GUARANTY ON IMPORTED PRODUCTS.
Many inquiries of the following type have been received by the Department:
We will take it as a favor if you will advise us if (since our goods are all imported and
so must pass the custom-house before being sold) the fact of their having passed the customs
authorities and the Department of Agriculture examination is not in itself a guaranty that
they conform with the pure-food laws as defined by the act of Congress approved June 30,
1906, entitled "An act for preventing the manufacture, sale, or transportation of adulterated
or misbranded or poisonous or deleterious foods, drugs, medicines, liquors," etc.
The Department makes a systematic inspection of imported foods and drugs when they
arrive at the custom-houses; and while such inspection does not include an examination of
samples taken from every package of the aforesaid articles, it is sufficient to indicate that
the article is suitable to enter the country and be sent into interstate commerce as long as it
retains its identity in the unbroken package. If imported foods and drugs are taken from
the original packages and repacked, they become subject to inspection as if of domestic
origin, and the persons handling and selling said articles are not immune from prosecution
in the event that a subsequent inspection discloses that all or any portion of said foods or
drugs are adulterated or misbranded according to the provisions of said statute or the regulations
made thereunder.
Only a wholesaler, jobber, manufacturer, or other party residing in the United States can give a guaranty within the meaning of said act. A foreign manufacturer or other foreign dealer can not give the guaranty prescribed in said law, nor can the agent of such foreign manufacturer or dealer give said guaranty unless such agent be a resident of the United States and unless he actually sells the goods covered by the guaranty.
The person who owns and sells imported goods can make a guaranty for the purpose aforesaid, though the goods may be shipped directly by the firm of whom the guarantor buys them to the customer of the guarantor.
James Wilson,
Secretary of Agriculture.
Washington, D. C., March 25, 1907.
