Tampering with a consumer product is a felony under Penal Code § 22.09 — altering a product headed for the public, or adding a foreign substance to it, in a way that makes serious bodily injury probable. The base charge is a second-degree felony, and even a threat to tamper is a felony. Below: the controlling statute text, the full punishment range, common defense theories, and what to do if you have been charged in Collin, Dallas, Denton, or Tarrant County.
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Published 2026-07-05 · Reviewed by Reggie London and Njeri London, Co-Founding Partners · Last reviewed: 2026-07-05
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Controlling statute:Tex. Penal Code § 22.09 Classification: Second-degree felony for tampering; first-degree felony if a person suffers serious bodily injury; third-degree felony for threatening to tamper Punishment range: 2–20 years TDCJ + fine up to $10,000 at the baseline; 5–99 years or life if serious bodily injury results; 2–10 years TDCJ for the § 22.09(c) threat variant
The controlling statute
Tampering with a consumer product sits in Chapter 22 of the Texas Penal Code — Assaultive Offenses — between aiding suicide and leaving a child in a vehicle. That placement is not an accident. The Legislature treats poisoning-type conduct aimed at the buying public as an assault on people, not an offense against a store’s inventory. The victim the statute protects is whoever might pick the item off the shelf next. Section 22.09(b) and (c) read:
“(b) A person commits an offense if he knowingly or intentionally tampers with a consumer product knowing that the consumer product will be offered for sale to the public or as a gift to another. (c) A person commits an offense if he knowingly or intentionally threatens to tamper with a consumer product with the intent to cause fear, to affect the sale of the consumer product, or to cause bodily injury to any person.” — Tex. Penal Code § 22.09(b)–(c)
Both terms that carry the statute are defined in subsection (a), and the definitions do most of the work in a real case. A “consumer product” is “any product offered for sale to or for consumption by the public,” expressly including “food” and “drugs” as defined by Health and Safety Code § 431.002. To “tamper” is “to alter or add a foreign substance to a consumer product to make it probable that the consumer product will cause serious bodily injury.” Read those definitions twice: the offense is not touching someone else’s merchandise. It is altering it, or introducing a foreign substance, in a way that makes serious bodily injury probable.
The statute’s history explains its severity. The 68th Legislature added § 22.09 effective September 1, 1983, and Congress signed the Federal Anti-Tampering Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1365, six weeks later in October 1983 — both direct responses to the 1982 cyanide-laced pain-reliever deaths in the Chicago area that transformed tamper-evident packaging nationwide. Texas amended the section in 1989 and folded it into the 1994 Penal Code recodification, and the text has not changed since September 1, 1994. Few Texas felonies have stood still for three decades; this one has.
One structural note that matters for defense analysis: subsection (b) punishes completed tampering, subsection (c) punishes a pure threat, and subsection (d) grades both. Appellate decisions construing § 22.09 are scarce because the charge is rarely filed compared with its Chapter 22 neighbors, so trial courts lean heavily on the § 1.07 general definitions — which makes precise, definition-level lawyering more valuable here, not less.
What Counts as “Tampering” with a Consumer Product?
The definition in § 22.09(a)(2) has two gates, and the State must clear both. The first is a conduct gate: the actor must alter the product or add a foreign substance to it. The second is a risk gate: the alteration or addition must make it probable — not merely possible — that the product will cause serious bodily injury. “Serious bodily injury” carries its usual Texas definition under Penal Code § 1.07(a)(46): bodily injury that creates a substantial risk of death or that causes death, serious permanent disfigurement, or protracted loss or impairment of the function of any bodily member or organ.
Run ordinary fact patterns through those gates and the statute’s real shape appears. Needles, broken glass, cyanide, bleach, or prescription medication introduced into food or over-the-counter products clear both gates comfortably. Saliva, hair, or other revolting-but-rarely-dangerous additions clear the conduct gate — a foreign substance is a foreign substance — but the risk gate is a genuine fight: the State needs evidence that serious bodily injury became probable, which usually means medical or laboratory testimony about disease transmission or toxicity, not just a jury’s disgust.
The “consumer product” element is broader than most people assume. The definition covers any product offered for sale to or for consumption by the public — groceries and pharmacy shelves, but also restaurant plates, drive-through orders, free samples, and cosmetics. The knowledge element then does the targeting: under subsection (b) the actor must know the product will be offered for sale to the public or as a gift to another. That is why re-shelving matters so much. A shopper who adulterates an item and abandons it in the aisle, or who returns a contaminated product for a refund, has supplied the exact knowledge element the statute requires.
The viral grocery-store “licking” videos of 2019 — including a Texas freezer-aisle incident that drew national coverage — put this section in headlines precisely because of that mechanic: filming a stunt with a product and then putting it back converts a prank into second-degree-felony territory, and police in several states opened product-tampering investigations over conduct the participants plainly thought was comedy.
A clearly hypothetical example shows the base offense: suppose a shopper opens a jar of salsa in the aisle, stirs in crushed glass, reseals the lid, and returns it to the shelf. Every element of § 22.09(b) is present the moment the jar touches the shelf — alteration by foreign substance, probability of serious bodily injury, a consumer product, and knowledge it will be offered for sale. Nobody needs to buy it. Nobody needs to be hurt. The felony is already complete.
Classification & punishment range
Grading under § 22.09(d) moves with the harm. The base offense is a second-degree felony even when the product never reaches a buyer. If “a person suffers serious bodily injury,” the offense becomes a first-degree felony — a result-based elevation, so the fight there is causation under Penal Code § 6.04: the State must tie the injury to the tampering. The threat variant of subsection (c) is a third-degree felony regardless of whether any product was ever touched.
Scenario
Classification
Punishment range
Tampering with a consumer product knowing it will be offered for sale to the public or as a gift — § 22.09(b)
Notice how unusual that baseline is. Assault causing bodily injury to an identified person is a Class A misdemeanor; § 22.09(b) starts two full felony grades higher for conduct that may never injure anyone. The Legislature priced the offense against the scale of the potential victim pool — an anonymous public that cannot protect itself — and against the economic shock a single contaminated item inflicts on a product line. A defendant with no criminal history who reshelved one adulterated item faces the same statutory range as a defendant convicted of aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury.
There is no misdemeanor version to fall back to. Charge-reduction conversations in § 22.09 cases therefore center on attempt (a third-degree felony), on recasting the conduct under a different statute that actually fits, or on the grand jury declining the tampering theory altogether — which is one reason early, definition-focused advocacy matters in this niche.
Elements the State must prove
Every element must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. For the completed offense under § 22.09(b), the State must establish:
1. A culpable mental state — knowingly or intentionally
Under Penal Code § 6.03, accident, mistake, and unknowing contact with the product do not qualify. The mental state attaches to the act of tampering itself.
2. Tampering as statutorily defined
The actor altered the product or added a foreign substance to it, and the alteration or addition made it probable the product would cause serious bodily injury. Both halves live inside the § 22.09(a)(2) definition, so a failure of either defeats the element.
3. A consumer product
A product offered for sale to or for consumption by the public — including food and drugs as defined by Health and Safety Code § 431.002. Items withdrawn from commerce and kept privately fall outside the definition.
4. Knowledge of the product’s destination
The actor knew the product would be offered for sale to the public or as a gift to another. This is the element that separates a crime against the public from conduct involving property that was never going back into anyone else’s hands.
The threat offense under § 22.09(c) swaps elements 2 through 4 for two of its own: a knowing or intentional threat to tamper with a consumer product, made with at least one of three specific intents — to cause fear, to affect the sale of the product, or to cause bodily injury to any person. The State does not have to prove the defendant could or would have carried the threat out; it has to prove the threat and the intent behind it.
How Do Prosecutors Prove Who Tampered with a Product?
Attribution is the central fight in most § 22.09(b) prosecutions. A retail product passes through a manufacturing line, packaging equipment, warehouses, trucks, stockers, and an unknowable number of shoppers before the alleged tampering surfaces — and every one of those hands is an alternative explanation the defense is entitled to explore. Unlike an assault case, there is usually no complaining witness who saw anything. The case is circumstantial by nature.
The State’s toolkit is predictable: store and stockroom surveillance video; fingerprints or DNA on the packaging; purchase, return, and loyalty-card records tying a person to the item; facility access logs and shift records in employee cases; social-media posts (the 2019 wave of cases was built almost entirely on self-published video); and the substance itself, identified through crime-laboratory analysis. Each strand has its own vulnerabilities — video that never shows hands on the specific unit, touch DNA consistent with ordinary shelf browsing, lab work that identifies a substance without dating its introduction.
The innocent-contamination alternative deserves particular attention. Foreign material appears in consumer products without any crime: metal shavings from processing equipment, packaging-line failures, supplier-level contamination. Federal food and drug recalls for exactly these defects are routine, which means “a foreign substance was present” does not itself prove tampering by anyone — let alone by the accused. A defense built on the manufacturing-and-distribution record can move a case from “who did it” to “whether anyone did anything at all.”
Chain of custody for the product matters twice over. The item is both the corpus of the offense and the primary forensic exhibit, so gaps between the consumer’s complaint, the store’s handling, and law-enforcement collection are fertile ground: who possessed the item during the gap, how it was stored, and whether the condition documented at the lab matches the condition described at seizure.
When Is Threatening to Tamper a Felony — Even If Nothing Was Touched?
Subsection (c) is a standalone crime that requires no contact with any product. A knowing or intentional threat to tamper becomes a third-degree felony when made with intent to cause fear, to affect the sale of the consumer product, or to cause bodily injury to any person. The offense is complete when the threat is communicated with one of those intents — there is no requirement that anyone believed it, that the product existed in reach, or that the person had any means to follow through.
The “affect the sale” intent makes § 22.09(c) unusual among Texas threat crimes: it reaches purely commercial pressure. The classic fact pattern is product extortion — a demand letter or call to a manufacturer or grocery chain claiming products will be contaminated unless money is paid. Labor disputes generate a second cluster: statements by terminated or disciplined employees about what could happen to the product line. A third cluster is social media, where a post about contaminating a specific product can be read as a threat rather than commentary.
Consider a clearly hypothetical example: a bottling-plant worker, fired on a Friday, texts his supervisor that unless his final paycheck arrives by Monday, “the next pallet ships with bleach in it.” No product is ever touched. The text alone supports a § 22.09(c) charge — a threat to tamper, with intent both to cause fear and to affect the sale — and the demand for money layers extortion exposure on top. The same message posted as a joke in a group chat of coworkers presents an entirely different intent picture, which is precisely the point: these cases rise and fall on context, audience, and the credibility of the claimed comedic intent.
Statements phrased in the past tense — “I already contaminated it” — sit at an intersection. Where the claim communicates present or future menace, prosecutors can still charge it as a threat to tamper; where it is a false public alarm about product safety, the conduct may instead draw a false alarm or report charge under Penal Code § 42.06, and the federal system has its own five-year felony for knowingly communicating false information that a product has been tainted, 18 U.S.C. § 1365(c). Which statute fits is not academic — the grades differ sharply.
Defense strategies
L and L Law Group builds § 22.09 defenses from the statute’s own definitions outward:
No qualifying tampering — nothing was altered and no foreign substance was added; damage, spoilage, or ordinary handling is not tampering
The probability gate fails — the State cannot show the alteration made serious bodily injury probable under § 22.09(a)(2); revolting is not the standard
Attribution failure — chain-of-custody gaps and the many-hands reality of retail distribution leave reasonable doubt about who introduced the substance, and when
Innocent contamination — manufacturing, packaging, or supplier-level defects explain the foreign material without any criminal act
No knowledge of the product’s destination — the State cannot prove the accused knew the item would be offered for sale or gifted
No culpable mental state — accident or unknowing conduct under Penal Code § 6.03
For threats: no qualifying intent — context shows hyperbole, venting, or comedy rather than intent to cause fear, affect the sale, or cause injury
Suppression — unlawful searches of a home, phone, or workplace records, with exclusion under the Fourth Amendment and Code of Criminal Procedure art. 38.23
The definitional defenses reward technical work. The laboratory report is the State’s bridge across the probability gate, so the defense examines what the substance actually is, its quantity and concentration in the product, and what the toxicology literature says about the dose a consumer would plausibly receive. Independent retesting and a defense toxicology consult can turn “foreign substance present” into “no probable serious injury on this record” — which defeats the tampering element entirely rather than merely mitigating it.
Timing matters more in this niche than in most felony practice. Because a § 22.09 case must be indicted by a grand jury, and because the innocent-contamination and attribution problems are usually visible in the first weeks, counsel retained early can assemble the manufacturing records, preserve store video before routine overwriting, and present the alternative explanation before the case hardens into an indictment.
How Is § 22.09 Different from Deadly Conduct, Terroristic Threat, and False Alarm?
Deadly conduct under Penal Code § 22.05 punishes recklessly placing another — an identifiable person — in imminent danger of serious bodily injury, and its base grade is a Class A misdemeanor. Section 22.09 needs no identifiable victim and no imminence: the danger can sit on a shelf for weeks, aimed at nobody in particular, and the offense is already a second-degree felony. Where a specific person was endangered by conduct that does not fit the tampering definition, deadly conduct is the more natural theory — and the grade difference makes the distinction worth litigating.
Terroristic threat under § 22.07 is the general-purpose threat crime, grading from a Class B misdemeanor to a third-degree felony depending on the target and purpose. The § 22.09(c) product-threat variant is always a third-degree felony and uniquely includes a commercial mens rea — intent to affect the sale of a product — that § 22.07 never mentions. Prosecutors facing a product-directed threat sometimes charge both; the elements overlap but are not identical, and the fit of each should be pressure-tested against the actual words used.
False alarm or report under § 42.06 covers knowingly false reports of a past or ongoing offense or emergency — the person who falsely claims products were poisoned, as opposed to the person who threatens future contamination. It is usually a Class A misdemeanor, rising to a state jail felony when the false report involves a school, public communications or utilities, or similar public services. Mapping a client’s statement onto the right statute — threat versus false report — can be the difference between a third-degree felony and a misdemeanor.
One boundary runs the other direction: contaminating food or drink aimed at a specific person — a spouse’s coffee, a coworker’s lunch — is generally not a § 22.09 case at all, because a privately destined item is not being “offered for sale to the public or as a gift” in the statutory sense. Those facts are charged as assault or aggravated assault, and our violent crimes defense practice handles them under an entirely different elements framework.
Do Federal Charges Apply to Product Tampering?
Often, yes — and the federal statute was born the same season as the Texas one. The Federal Anti-Tampering Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1365, reaches tampering with any consumer product that affects interstate or foreign commerce — a hook satisfied by virtually every item on a Texas retail shelf. The federal ladder: tampering with reckless disregard for the risk of death or bodily injury carries up to 10 years; up to 20 years if serious bodily injury results; and up to life if death results. Separate subsections punish tainting a product to injure a business (up to 3 years), knowingly communicating false information that a product has been tainted (up to 5 years), and threatening to tamper (up to 5 years).
Section 1365(g) gives the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture express authority to investigate tampering involving products they regulate, alongside the FBI — which is why a contamination complaint at a national brand can produce federal agents rather than local detectives. As a practical matter, multi-state, brand-level, or extortion-driven cases tend to go federal, while a single incident at a local store or restaurant is usually filed in a Texas district court.
The two systems can both prosecute the same conduct — separate sovereigns, separate cases — so a client contacted by any investigator, state or federal, should treat the matter as potentially dual-track from day one. Statements given to a store’s loss-prevention office or a health inspector have a way of appearing in both files.
Enhancements & collateral consequences
Within the statute, the only escalator is the injury elevation to a first-degree felony. Outside it, the usual Texas machinery applies: prior felony convictions can raise the punishment range under Penal Code § 12.42, and a second-degree case with a qualifying prior can be punished as a first-degree felony.
A felony conviction under § 22.09 carries the standard firearm consequences: state law bars possession for five years after release from confinement or supervision (and afterward limits possession to the home) under Penal Code § 46.04, while federal law imposes a lifetime bar under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g).
The employment fallout is unusually targeted for this offense. A tampering conviction is close to disqualifying in the industries where these allegations arise — food service and food manufacturing, grocery retail, hospitality, pharmacy, and healthcare — and it puts food-manager and food-handler certifications, professional licenses, and TABC-related work at risk. Non-citizens face serious immigration exposure, since adulterating products intended for the public fits comfortably within moral-turpitude analysis. Restitution is also live: a business that destroyed inventory or pulled a product line can seek its losses as part of any resolution.
On the relief side, § 22.09 is not among the offenses excluded from judge-ordered community supervision under Code of Criminal Procedure ch. 42A (art. 42A.054), so probation is legally available, and deferred adjudication remains on the table in appropriate cases. A conviction cannot be expunged; a dismissal, no-bill, or acquittal can support an expunction, and a completed deferred adjudication may later support an order of nondisclosure under Government Code ch. 411, subchapter E-1.
What Happens After a Product-Tampering Arrest in Collin, Dallas, Denton, or Tarrant County?
The procedural spine is the standard Texas felony track: arrest, magistration under Code of Criminal Procedure art. 15.17 with bond set, grand-jury presentation, and — if indicted — arraignment and pretrial practice in a district court. Bond conditions in § 22.09 cases commonly include no contact with the complaining business or its employees and no return to the premises; in employee cases, they can effectively end the job before the case is decided, which is worth raising at the first bond hearing rather than after the damage is done.
Venue follows the county of the store, restaurant, or plant. Collin County felonies are indicted and heard in the district courts at the Collin County Courthouse in McKinney; Dallas County cases run through the Frank Crowley Courts Building; Denton County cases through the Denton County Courts Building; and Tarrant County cases through the Tim Curry Criminal Justice Center in Fort Worth. The counties differ in tempo and in how their intake divisions treat unusual charges, and § 22.09 is unusual everywhere — a point that cuts for the defense, because charge selection gets a second look at the grand-jury stage.
These cases start in distinctive ways: a customer complaint routed through a city or county health department, a retailer’s loss-prevention file handed to police, or — increasingly — a viral video that identifies its own suspect. Laboratory confirmation of the foreign substance typically runs through a DPS or county crime laboratory, and that testing timeline means months can pass between seizure and any charging decision. That window is defense time. Preservation letters for store surveillance video (routinely overwritten in days or weeks), early collection of the product’s manufacturing and shipping records, and a documented innocent-contamination presentation to the grand jury are all work that cannot be done later.
Media attention is a live management issue in this niche — contamination stories travel. Statements to reporters, posts “clearing your name” online, and explanations offered to store personnel all become exhibits. The safer course is the boring one: no statements to anyone but counsel, in every county, at every stage.
Key Legal Terms
Consumer Product (§ 22.09(a)(1))
Any product offered for sale to or for consumption by the public, expressly including “food” and “drugs” as defined by Health and Safety Code § 431.002 — groceries, restaurant food, medications, cosmetics, and retail goods generally.
Tamper (§ 22.09(a)(2))
To alter or add a foreign substance to a consumer product to make it probable that the product will cause serious bodily injury. Both the conduct and the probability of serious injury are required.
Foreign Substance
Not separately defined by the statute — in practice, anything that is not part of the product as manufactured and offered. The identity, quantity, and toxicity of the substance drive the probability analysis.
Serious Bodily Injury (§ 1.07(a)(46))
Bodily injury that creates a substantial risk of death or that causes death, serious permanent disfigurement, or protracted loss or impairment of the function of any bodily member or organ.
Federal Anti-Tampering Act (18 U.S.C. § 1365)
The federal counterpart enacted in October 1983, covering products in interstate commerce, with FDA and USDA investigative authority and penalties reaching life imprisonment where death results.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is tampering with a consumer product a felony in Texas?
Yes — every version of the offense is a felony. Tampering itself is a second-degree felony under Penal Code § 22.09, it rises to a first-degree felony if a person suffers serious bodily injury, and merely threatening to tamper is a third-degree felony. The statute has no misdemeanor tier.
What does “tamper” actually mean under § 22.09?
The definition is narrow. To “tamper” is to alter a consumer product, or add a foreign substance to it, in a way that makes it probable the product will cause serious bodily injury. Conduct that is offensive but unlikely to seriously hurt anyone does not satisfy the definition — a genuinely contested issue in many cases.
Can I be charged if nobody was hurt?
Yes. The base offense is complete the moment the product is tampered with, so long as the actor knew it would be offered for sale to the public or given as a gift. Injury is not an element of the second-degree charge — serious bodily injury only operates as the escalator to a first-degree felony.
Is spitting in food or drink product tampering?
It can be charged that way, but the State still has to prove the added substance made serious bodily injury probable, not just that the act was disgusting. Prosecutors sometimes pursue food-contamination conduct under other theories instead. The probability-of-serious-injury requirement in § 22.09(a)(2) is where these cases are fought.
I only threatened to contaminate a product and never touched anything. Is that a crime?
A threat alone is a third-degree felony under § 22.09(c) when it is made with intent to cause fear, to affect the sale of the product, or to cause bodily injury. No actual tampering is required. The State must prove that specific intent, so context — audience, tone, and follow-through — becomes the battleground.
How is product tampering different from a terroristic threat?
Terroristic threat under Penal Code § 22.07 covers threats of violence generally and grades from a Class B misdemeanor up to a third-degree felony. Section 22.09(c) is product-specific, is always a third-degree felony, and uniquely reaches a commercial purpose — intent to affect the sale of the product — that § 22.07 does not address.
Can federal charges apply to the same conduct?
Yes. The Federal Anti-Tampering Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1365, covers tampering with any consumer product affecting interstate commerce, and the FDA and USDA have express investigative authority. Federal exposure runs up to 20 years if serious bodily injury results and up to life if death results. Texas and federal prosecutions can proceed separately.
Can a § 22.09 charge be dismissed or reduced?
It happens, and the paths track the statute's own definitions: no qualifying alteration or foreign substance, no probability of serious bodily injury, attribution the State cannot prove, or an innocent-contamination explanation. A felony charge must also survive grand-jury review, which gives early defense work a real target before indictment.
Am I eligible for probation or deferred adjudication for product tampering?
Generally, yes as a legal matter. Section 22.09 is not among the offenses excluded from judge-ordered community supervision under Code of Criminal Procedure art. 42A.054, and deferred adjudication is available in appropriate cases. Practical eligibility depends on the facts, the county, and whether the case involves an injury.
Will a product-tampering case stay on my record?
A conviction cannot be expunged. A dismissal, no-bill, or acquittal can support an expunction, and a successfully completed deferred adjudication may lead to an order of nondisclosure after the waiting period. Which path is realistic depends on how the case resolves, which is one more reason the early defense posture matters.
Reggie London co-founded L and L Law Group with a focus on federal criminal defense, complex felony defense, and TEA/SBEC matters. Licensed in Texas, admitted to TXND and TXED.
Njeri London co-founded L and L Law Group with a focus on DWI defense, family violence cases, and juvenile defense. Licensed in Texas, admitted to TXND and TXED.
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