BILL ANALYSIS
SB 888
Page 1
Date of Hearing: August 4, 2010
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
SB 888 (Yee) - As Amended: June 21, 2010
Policy Committee: HealthVote:18 - 0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
Yes Reimbursable: No
SUMMARY
This bill requires manufacturers of Asian rice-based noodles to
include a label on the product packaging that includes the date
of manufacture and appropriate time for consumption. In
addition, the bill permits food facilities to sell Asian rice
noodles that have been kept at room temperature for no more than
four hours.
FISCAL EFFECT
1)There are no significant costs for the Department of Public
Health (DPH) associated with this legislation.
2)Potential nonreimbursable costs to local government for
additional enforcement, offset to some extent by additional
fine revenues.
COMMENTS
1)Rationale . This bill is intended to allow Asian rice
noodle-makers to sell their products as long as the packaging
contains the required labeling and authorizes them to maintain
the noodles at room temperature for up to four hours, rather
than requiring that they be refrigerated at below 41 degrees
or heated to above 135 degrees. The author asserts California
Asian rice- based noodle-makers have been shutting their doors
and eliminating jobs because of a questionable interpretation
of current law that requires these noodles, long considered a
staple of Asian cuisine, to be refrigerated rather than
SB 888
Page 2
maintained at room temperature, which is current industry
practice.
The author argues that the current heating and refrigeration
requirements should not apply to Asian rice based noodles
because they are meant to be kept at room temperature for up
to four hours, and any change in production would change a
standard used by Asian communities for thousands of years.
2)Related Legislation . AB 2214 (Tran; Chapter 160, Statutes of
2006) established the Asian Traditional Food Act and directed
DPH to conduct a study on the effects of current retail food
safety and sanitation standards on the sale and consumption of
specified traditional Asian food. That study was provided to
the Legislature and the results were mixed. Certain foods
were deemed to be potentially hazardous if stored at room
temperatures, while others were not determined to be hazardous
if prepared correctly and only stored for 48 hours.
AB 187 (Liu; Chapter 204, Statutes of 2001) allowed retail
food facilities to sell Korean rice cakes that have been kept
at room temperature for less than 24 hours and directed Korean
rice cake manufacturers to provide a date stamp indicating the
date of manufacture and a warning label that the rice cake
must be consumed within one day of manufacture.
Analysis Prepared by : Julie Salley-Gray / APPR. / (916)
319-2081