(a) In General- Any food establishment or foreign food establishment engaged in manufacturing, processing, packing, or holding food for consumption in the United States shall register annually with the Administrator.

Notice that annual registration is limited to a Food Establishment or foreign food establishment. One cannot imply that this extends beyond these two entities as defined in the definitions section and only those that engage in manufacturing, processing, packing or holding food for consumption.

Before I get to what is a Food Establishment or foreign food establishment, let me give you an example of the use of include and typical efforts employed to muddy the waters.

To start with we must recognize that if a word is meant to be understood as having its common meaning, there is no need to define it at all. It is axiomatic that if a word is explicitly defined, it has a restricted meaning. If language such as the term “Fruit” is used and defined as “includes, apples, oranges, and pears”, it can only be understood as restricting the definition to those things listed, or no definition would be required; the word “fruit” would be understood to include apples, oranges and pears, as well as all other fruits. If the word “common” is left out of the definition, then the things used in the definition are what establish the class to which belong, and as the word is being deliberately defined, the common meaning of the word must be excluded.

Under the definitions section:

(13) FOOD ESTABLISHMENT-

(A) IN GENERAL- The term ‘food establishment’ means a slaughterhouse (except those regulated under the Federal Meat Inspection Act or the Poultry Products Inspection Act), factory, warehouse, or facility owned or operated by a person located in any State that processes food or a facility that holds, stores, or transports food or food ingredients.

(B) EXCLUSIONS- For the purposes of registration, the term ‘food establishment’ does not include a food production facility as defined in paragraph (14), restaurant, other retail food establishment, nonprofit food establishment in which food is prepared for or served directly to the consumer, or fishing vessel (other than a fishing vessel engaged in processing, as that term is defined in section 123.3 of title 21, Code of Federal Regulations).

(14) FOOD PRODUCTION FACILITY- The term ‘food production facility’ means any farm, ranch, orchard, vineyard, aquaculture facility, or confined animal-feeding operation.

So a Food Establishment is not a farm, ranch, orchard, vineyard, aquaculture facility, confined animal-feeding operation. This is a custom definition, is specific and no other implications can be drawn as meaning something else. Note that farm, ranch …. since not custom defined, have a common definition without exclusion or inclusion. I do not have cites to their common definition.

In addition to the above, a Food Establishment is not a resturant, retail food establishment, nonprofit food establishment or fishing vessel (as limited in definition to section 123.3 of title 21 of CFR). Again, resturant, retail food establishment …. have a common definition without exclusion or inclusion.

There is a specific class of actions as custom defined by ‘Process’, all of them being Commercial.

(19) PROCESS- The term ‘process’ or ‘processing’ means the commercial slaughter, packing, preparation, or manufacture of food.

Note this means Commercial slaughter, commercial packing, commercial preparation, commercial manufacture of food.

There is another specific class of actions not defined but listed as holds, stores, or transports. Common definitions apply here.

Also, there is a geographical constraint that limits this to any State. What is a State?

(20) STATE- The term ‘State’ means–

(A) a State;

(B) the District of Columbia;

(C) the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico; and

(D) any other territory or possession of the United States.

This is important since we move to the only other entity required to register annually, a foreign food establishment.

(16) FOREIGN FOOD ESTABLISHMENT- The term ‘foreign food establishment’ means any category 1 through 5 food establishment or food production facility located outside the United States that processes or produces food or food ingredients for consumption in the United States.

Look at what has happened here. The Food Establishment custom definition does not apply since the location is specific and “located outside the United States” and does not fall within the confines of a ‘State’. Therefore the exclusions of “(14) Food Production Facility” do not apply.

This makes this particular entity far more reaching than the restrictive entity of a “Food Establishment” located in a ‘State’.

What does all this mean?

If you do not fall under the custom definition of a “Food Establishment” you are not required to register. If you are not required to register then there is no categorization of you as a Category 1 thru 5, you can’t be assigned a registration number, there is no inspection, monitoring, or reporting requirements. This is however not a statement that you are not obligated to practice good health standards.