Consumer Services protects the citizens of this state from fraud by ensuring net content statements on packages and weighing or measuring devices are correct; ensuring that agricultural products are measured correctly when being bought or sold; maintaining the state's primary standards for mass, length, and volume and furnishing calibration services to industry; ensuring that eggs marketed in the state are properly graded and labeled; ensuring prompt and full payment to the state's farmers for the products they produce; regulating warehouse facilities where farmers store their cotton and grain crops; ensuring the accuracy of weights and measurements when commodities are bought and sold in bulk; inspecting manufacturing and storage facilities for foods and cosmetics; and drawing official samples for the Department's Laboratory Division to ensure the quality of motor fuels, the quality and safety of some food products, and the quality of some agricultural products. The Division administers the Weights and Measures Law, the Egg Law, Public Weighmasters Law, Dealers and Handlers Law, State Warehouse System Law, Food and Cosmetic Law, and also assists the Laboratory Division in the enforcement of several other laws.
Laboratory Services protects consumers from unsafe, ineffective, or fraudulent goods which may be offered for public sale; assures that goods meet acceptable standards of quality; and issues registrations, licenses, and permits to certain businesses.
The Laboratory performs tests on feeds, seeds, foods, pesticides, and petroleum products through chemical, biological, and physical qualitative and quantitative analyses and testing technology to assure that goods meet acceptable standards of quality. The Division staffs a Food Laboratory, Feed Laboratory, Seed Laboratory, Chemical Residue Laboratory, and Petroleum Products Laboratory.
The Laboratory also registers animal and pet foods, frozen desserts, gasoline, and antifreeze; issues licenses for butterfat testers and milk samplers and weighmen; and grants permits to salvage food operations. Two to three thousand licenses, permits, and registrations are granted each year.
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