Third-party food delivery platforms: food safety.

Existing law, the California Retail Food Code, establishes uniform health and sanitation standards for, and provides for regulation by the State Department of Public Health of, retail food facilities, as defined, and requires local health agencies to enforce these provisions. Existing law provides specified standards for the transportation of food, including, among others, the requirement for all food to be transported so as to be pure and free from adulteration and spoilage, and the requirement for potentially hazardous food to be maintained at the required holding temperatures, except as specified. A person who violates any provision of the code is guilty of a misdemeanor, except as otherwise provided. This bill would require ready-to-eat food delivered through a third-party food delivery platform, as defined, to be transported in a manner in which the ready-to-eat food is protected from contamination, as specified, and would require all bags or containers in which ready-to-eat foods are being transported or delivered from a food facility to a customer through a third-party food delivery platform to be closed by the food facility with a tamper-evident method prior to the food deliverer taking possession of the food. The bill would authorize enforcement officers to recover reasonable costs in enforcing those requirements. The bill would exempt from the bag or container requirement food transported as part of a charitable feeding program and food that is being donated to a food bank. By imposing duties on local officials and creating a new crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that with regard to certain mandates no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason. With regard to any other mandates, this bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs so mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above.