§ 96.001.Definition

One definition, and every element of it narrows the chapter.

"Perishable food product" means a food product of agriculture or aquaculture that is sold or distributed in a form that will perish or decay beyond marketability within a limited period of time.

Three limits. It must be a food product; it must be of agriculture or aquaculture; and it must be perishable in the form sold.

Perishability is what the chapter is about. A false claim that a shelf-stable product is unsafe damages a producer who can wait out the story. The same claim about lettuce, strawberries, or oysters destroys a crop that had days of marketable life left.

By the time the claim is disproved the product is gone, and an ordinary defamation or business disparagement action recovers nothing fast enough to matter.

Aquaculture is expressly included, which covers farmed fish and shellfish — a category where safety scares are common and the product is highly perishable.

Chapters of this kind are often called "veggie libel" statutes, and Texas enacted this one in 1995. The elements the following sections impose are demanding enough that it has rarely produced a successful claim.