Montana Code Annotated
Part 4. Sanitation, Quality, and Labeling Requirements
81-22-411. Filled dairy products unlawful -- exceptions

81-22-411. Filled dairy products unlawful -- exceptions. (1) Filled dairy products resemble genuine dairy products so closely that they lend themselves readily to substitution for and confusion with such dairy products and in many cases cannot be distinguished from genuine dairy products by the ordinary consumer or ordinary laboratory procedures. The manufacture, sale, exchange, purveying, transportation, possession, or offering for sale or exchange or purveyance of filled dairy products lends itself to substitution, confusion, deception, and fraud and if permitted, tends to interfere with the orderly and fair marketing of foods essential to the well-being of the people of this state. It is hereby declared to be the purpose of this chapter to:
(a) correct, prevent, and eliminate the condition above referred to;
(b) protect the public from confusion, fraud, and deception;
(c) prohibit practices inimical to the general welfare; and
(d) promote the orderly and fair marketing of essential foods.
(2) It is unlawful:
(a) for any person to manufacture, sell, exchange, display, purvey, transport, or possess any filled dairy product or to offer or expose for sale or exchange or to be purveyed any such product in intrastate commerce;
(b) for any person owning or operating a bakery, confectionery shop, factory, or other place where food products are prepared or manufactured for sale, exchange, or purveyance to the public in intrastate commerce to utilize any filled dairy product as an ingredient in any food product so manufactured or prepared;
(c) for any person knowingly to sell, exchange, purvey, transport, or possess any food product in intrastate commerce in which any filled dairy product is an ingredient.
(3) The term "filled dairy product" does not mean or include:
(a) oleomargarine;
(b) any distinctive proprietary food compound not readily mistaken for a dairy product where such compound is customarily used on the order of a physician and is prepared and designed for medicinal or special dietary use and prominently so labeled;
(c) any frozen dessert containing animal fat (other than butterfat) or vegetable fat when the container is properly labeled;
(d) any dairy product flavored with chocolate or cocoa where the fats or oils other than milk fat contained in such product do not exceed the amount of cacao fat naturally present in the chocolate or cocoa used; or
(e) any dairy product in which the vitamin content has been increased and food oil utilized as a carrier of such vitamins provided the quantity of such food oil does not exceed 1/100 of 1% of the weight of the finished dairy product.
History: En. Sec. 35, Ch. 413, L. 1971; amd. Sec. 6, Ch. 12, L. 1977; R.C.M. 1947, 3-24-122.