When "fresh" on a label or sign suggests a food is unprocessed, FDA holds it to a definition: the food is raw, and has never been frozen, heated or preserved any other way. A few things don't spoil it: a wax or coating, approved post-harvest pesticides, a mild chlorine or acid wash on produce, low-dose irradiation, and keeping it cold. So a quart of strawberries picked this morning is fresh, and so are greens rinsed in a mild chlorine wash. Strawberry jam isn't, and neither is a frozen berry. For frozen food there's a separate term: "fresh frozen" or "frozen fresh" means the food was quickly frozen while still fresh, recently harvested, by something like a blast freezer that freezes it to the center fast; blanching first is allowed. A bag of berries that froze slowly in a chest freezer is "frozen". The rule covers "fresh" in a brand name too, though not uses where nobody would think the food is unprocessed, such as fresh milk. In the example below, a Wisconsin farm stand works out what its winter berries can be called.
The short version
- Fresh, when it suggests unprocessed: raw, never frozen, heated or preserved.
- Waxes, approved pesticides, a mild chlorine or acid wash, and refrigeration don't rule it out.
- Jam, canned, cooked, pasteurized or frozen foods aren't fresh in this sense.
- Fresh frozen: quickly frozen while still fresh, soon after harvest; blanching is allowed.
- A slow chest-freezer freeze is "frozen", not "fresh frozen".
- The rule covers brand names and signs that call the food fresh, too.
- TaroStack keeps each picking and each freezing as a lot with its date. More below.
Fresh or not
| Food | Fresh? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Berries picked this morning | Yes | Raw, never frozen or preserved |
| Greens in a mild chlorine rinse | Yes | The wash is allowed |
| Berries frozen quickly the day they're picked | Fresh frozen | Quickly frozen while fresh |
| Berries frozen slowly in a chest freezer | Frozen | Not quickly frozen |
| Jam, salsa in jars, pasteurized sauce | No | Heated or preserved |
The roadside stand itself is in how to start a farm stand, and other label claims in all natural label claim.
The rules
| Rule | Where |
|---|---|
| Fresh | When it suggests the food is unprocessed: raw, never frozen, thermally processed or otherwise preserved (21 CFR 101.95(a)) |
| What's allowed | Approved waxes or coatings, approved post-harvest pesticides, a mild chlorine or acid wash, irradiation up to 1 kGy, refrigeration (101.95(c)) |
| Fresh frozen | Quickly frozen while still fresh, recently harvested; blanching allowed; quickly frozen means a system such as blast freezing that freezes it to the center fast (101.95(b)) |
| Other uses | Fresh that doesn't suggest the food is unprocessed, such as fresh milk, falls under the general rule against false or misleading labels (21 U.S.C. 343(a)) |
This is general information, not legal advice.
An example: winter berries at a roadside stand
Honey Creek Farm, the made-up vegetable and berry farm near Baraboo, Wisconsin, I use in these examples, sells berries, corn and tomatoes from a self-serve stand all summer, and wanted to sell frozen berries in the winter:
| Product | How it's handled | What the sign says |
|---|---|---|
| Strawberries, quart | Picked that morning | Fresh strawberries |
| Salad greens | Washed in a mild chlorine rinse, kept cold | Fresh greens |
| Strawberries, first winter batch | Frozen in the farm's chest freezer | Frozen strawberries |
| Strawberries, second batch | Blast frozen the day they were picked, at a nearby locker plant | Fresh frozen strawberries |
| Strawberry jam | Cooked and canned | Strawberry jam, from our berries |
The first batch, frozen slowly in a chest freezer, went out as "frozen strawberries". For the next one the farm paid a locker plant down the road to blast freeze the berries the afternoon they were picked, and those bags say "fresh frozen". The jam never says fresh; it says where the berries came from. Whether the farm falls under FDA's produce rules is in produce safety rule exemptions.
Get the checker
Download the fresh claim checker. One sheet: for each product, whether it's raw, frozen, heated or otherwise preserved, and whether it was quickly frozen right after harvest; whether it can say fresh or fresh frozen fills in. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
The word on the bag depends on the day the berries were picked and how they were frozen. By January, a freezer of bags from three different pickings and two freezing methods looks the same, unless each bag carries its lot.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps each picking and each freezing as a lot with its date.
Each picking a lot. A morning's strawberries are received as a lot with the picking date.
Freezing as a batch. Freezing a picking is a batch that takes those berries and makes frozen bags, with their own lot and date, and a field of your own can note how they were frozen.
Oldest first. First-expired-first-out is the default, so the oldest frozen bags go out first.
| The job | Notebook | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Which picking went into a bag | Marker on the bag | Lots by picking date |
| How a batch was frozen | Remembered | A field on the batch |
| Which bags to sell first | A guess | First-expired-first-out |
Lots, batches and first-expired-first-out are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.