Ripe Olives

The products covered by this order are certain processed olives, usually referred to as ``ripe olives.'' The subject merchandise includes all colors of olives; all shapes and sizes of olives, whether pitted or not pitted, and whether whole, sliced, chopped, minced, wedged, broken, or otherwise reduced in size; all types of packaging, whether for consumer (retail) or institutional (food service) sale, and whether canned or packaged in glass, metal, plastic, multilayered airtight containers (including pouches), or otherwise; and all manners of preparation and preservation, whether low acid or acidified, stuffed or not stuffed, with or without flavoring and/or saline solution, and including in ambient, refrigerated, or frozen conditions. Included are all ripe olives grown, processed in whole or in part, or packaged in Spain. Subject merchandise includes ripe olives that have been further processed in Spain or a third country, including but not limited to curing, fermenting, rinsing, oxidizing, pitting, slicing, chopping, segmenting, wedging, stuffing, packaging, or heat treating, or any other processing that would not otherwise remove the merchandise from the scope of the order if performed in Spain. Subject merchandise includes ripe olives that otherwise meet the definition above that are packaged together with non-subject products, where the smallest individual packaging unit (e.g., can, pouch, jar, etc.) of any such product--regardless of whether the smallest unit of packaging is included in a larger packaging unit (e.g., display case, etc.)--contains a majority (i.e., more than 50 percent) of ripe olives by net drained weight. The scope does not include the non-subject components of such product. Excluded from the scope are: (1) Specialty olives (including ``Spanish-style,'' ``Sicilian-style,'' and other similar olives) that have been processed by fermentation only, or by being cured in an alkaline solution for not longer than 12 hours and subsequently fermented; and (2) provisionally prepared olives unsuitable for immediate consumption (currently classifiable in subheading 0711.20 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS)).