In these regulations, any word or expression to which a meaning has been assigned in the Act, shall have that meaning and unless the context otherwise indicates—

"air cell"

means the air filled space occurring between the inner and outer shell membranes of an egg and which is normally located at the broad end of the egg;

"assignee"

means a person, undertaking, body, institution, association or board designated under section 2(3) of the Agricultural Product Standards Act, 1990 (Act No. 119 of 1990);

"barn eggs"

means eggs which are produced by poultry as set out in regulation 8(3);

"best before" or "best quality before date"

means the date which signifies the end of period under any stated storage conditions during which the unopened product will remain fully marketable and will retain any specific qualities for which implied or express claims have been made, however, beyond the date the food may still be acceptable for consumption;

"blood ring"

means a line or ring that is visible at a certain stage of development in a fertilised egg when such egg is broken open or candled;

"blood spot"

means a concentration of blood or oxidised blood;

"broad end"

means the end of the egg that is rounder and is not pointed, and in which the air cell is normally located;

"bubbly air cell"

means an air cell with small air bubbles floating in the immediate vicinity of such an air cell;

"cage eggs"

means eggs which are produced by poultry as set out in regulation 8(4);

"candling"

means examining the interior condition of an egg by rotating or causing the egg to rotate in front of or over a light source that illuminates the contents of the egg;

"clean"

with regard to the cleanliness of the shell of an egg, means a shell that is free of visible foreign matter, stains or discolourations to such a degree that the general clean appearance thereof is not detrimentally affected;

"consignment"

means a quantity of eggs belonging to the same supplier, which is delivered at any one time under cover of the same invoice, consignment note, delivery note or receipt note, or is delivered by the same vehicle, or if such a quantity is sub-sorted into different batches, grades or size groups, each quantity of each of the different batches, grades or size groups;

"container"

means the wrapper in which a maximum of 60 eggs are packed for sale;

"controlled heat treatment process"

means a standardised process where the time and temperature parameters were determined by heat penetration tests using temperature probes measuring the internal temperatures in the centre/core of the eggs, using the Z-value and Lethal rate (L) calculation to ensure that at least a 5 logarithmic reduction is obtained for the target organism (Salmonella spp. in this case) in the coldest egg: Provided that a logarithmic reduction of 4 may be used for the coldest egg if a validated Salmonella spp. management system is in place along the entire value chain;

"depth"

with regard to an air cell, means the greatest distance between the outer surface of the shell of the egg and the lower meniscus of the air cell, measured vertically with such meniscus;

"diffused blood"

means blood that has passed through to the egg white and the egg yolk;

"D-value"

means the Decimal Reduction Time, i.e. the time in minutes for the population of micro-organisms to be reduced by one log (i.e. 90%) at a specified temperature (Tx);

"eggs"

means the eggs of the species Gallus gallus domesticus (domesticated fowls), Meleagrus gallapavo (turkeys) and Anas platyrhynchos (ducks and muscovies);

"Executive Officer"

means the officer designated under section 2(1) of the Act;

"foreign matter"

means poultry faeces, blood, body fluids, feathers or parts of feathers, egg yolk, egg white, poultry feedstuffs, soil or any other matter, excluding ink and mineral oil of food grade which were applied to the shell of the egg for a specific purpose;

"free range eggs"

means eggs which are produced by poultry as set out in regulation 8(2);

"germ development"

means a circular dark area near the centre of the yolk shadow, but if blood is visible the egg is at a decay stage;

"graded eggs"

means eggs which are sorted into lots having similar characteristics as to quality and weight as set out in this regulation: Provided that mixed sized eggs which complies with the quality standards prescribed in this regulation shall be regarded as graded eggs;

"Haugh value"

means a value as determined in accordance with regulation 16, that indicates the firmness of the egg white;

"inspector"

means the executive officer of the Act or an officer under his or her control, or an assignee or an employee of an assignee;

"Lethal rate (L)"

means the formula L= (10[(T-Tx)/Z])/D used to calculate the equivalent lethality (i.e. equivalent log reduction) at different egg core temperatures in the pasteurisation process at one minute (60 second) intervals as measured using appropriate instruments. The sum of the Lethal rates gives the cumulative lethality (Total log reduction) over the entire temperature profile, where—

L = Lethal rate (equivalent log reduction calculated at 1 minute intervals)

T = Temperature (°C) under consideration (i.e. the actual pasteurisation temperature measured at a given point of time in the core of the egg)

Tx = Reference Temperature (°C) (i.e. 57.2°C)

Z = Z-value (i.e. 3.3)

D = D-value (i.e. 1.9 minutes);

"logarithmic reduction"

means the reduction of the number of surviving spores of the target organism by a factor of 10 (i.e. a 90% reduction in the population);

"loose eggs"

means eggs that are displayed for sale in loose quantities or in a container that is not covered or boxed;

"meat spot"

means a severed ovary or other foreign tissue that is not a normal constituent of the egg yolk or egg white and that detrimentally affects the appearance of an egg;

"mould"

means any fungus or mouldy growth occurring in an egg or on the shell thereof;

"outer container"

means a container in which more than one container of eggs is packed;

"pack station"

means any premises where eggs are packed for sale to the retail trade;

"packer"

means a person dealing in the course of trade with eggs by packing them for sale, and also a person on behalf of whom such product is packed for sale and, in the case of such product that is imported into the Republic in the containers in which the eggs are to be sold in the retail trade, the person importing such eggs for sale;

"pasteurised eggs"

means eggs which have been treated as set out in regulation 8(5);

"person"

means any individual, partnership, corporation, association, recognized legal entity or other business unit;

"poultry"

means the species Gallus gallus domesticus (domesticated fowls), Meleagrus gallapavo (turkeys) and Anas platyrhynchos (ducks and muscovies);

"reasonably clean"

with regard to the cleanliness of the shell of an egg, means that not more than six per cent of the total surface area of the shell may be covered with foreign matter, stains or discolourations, and that no individual occurrence of foreign matter or a stain or discolouration covers more than three per cent of the total surface area of the shell;

"spotted"

with regard to a yolk, means that the yolk appears mottled owing to the occurrence of spots or a developed germ cell that is not a blood spot or meat spot and which detrimentally affects the appearance of the yolk;

"strong"

with regard to the texture of the shell of an egg, means that such shell has no cracks, soft spots or large air pores;

"total log reduction"

means the sum of the Lethal rates (La + Lb + Lc + Ld, etc.) as calculated at one minute intervals over the entire pasteurisation process;

"swimmer"

means an air cell that does not maintain a fixed position within an egg, but moves freely between the shell membranes when that egg is rotated;

"the Act"

means the Agricultural Product Standards Act, 1990 (Act No. 119 of 1990);

"trade mark"

means a trade mark as defined in the Trade Marks Act, 1993 (Act No. 194 of 1993);

"validated Salmonella spp. management system"

means tests done by an independent third party throughout the value chain (i.e. at breeder, grower, layer, packer, heat treatment, distributor, wholesale and retail levels) to provide proof that the management system is working and that there is no Salmonella spp. contamination or re-contamination; and

"Z-value"

means a value (Kinetic factor) providing information on the relative resistance of an organism (Salmonella spp. in this case) to different destructive temperatures, thus allowing for the calculation of equivalent thermal processes at different temperatures using the lethal rate (L) calculation: Provided that it is advised that the worst case scenario value be used, i.e. a Z-value of 3.3 at 57.2°C and a D-value of 1.9 (reference Lemgo D and Z-value database for food; http://www.hsowl.de/fb4/ldzbase/index.pl).