Short answer. Yes. Article 92 of the Labor Code lists preventing loss or damage to perishable goods as one of the specific grounds on which an employer may require work on a rest day. Genuinely perishable stock at risk of spoiling falls directly within this ground.
What the law says
To prevent loss or damage to perishable goods
Labor Code, Article 92 — Work On A Rest Day. Read the full provision →
Rest-day work is the exception, not the default
Article 92 is titled around the question of when an employer may require work on a rest day, which signals that the default is the opposite: employees are not ordinarily required to work on their rest day, and an employer needs one of the article's specific grounds to require it. Perishable goods is one of those specific, recognized grounds, listed alongside emergencies, urgent repairs, and a handful of other concrete situations.
A short, specific ground
Article 92 lists this ground in five words: To prevent loss or damage to perishable goods. Unlike some of the article's other grounds, this one is not qualified by words like urgent or serious — it is written narrowly around one specific fact, that the goods involved are perishable and at risk of loss or damage if work stops. If your work involves that kind of stock, this ground applies directly to it.
What makes goods 'perishable' for this purpose
The ground is built around the nature of the goods themselves — items that spoil, decay, or lose value through the ordinary passage of time or lack of handling, such as fresh food, produce, or other stock that cannot simply wait until the next working day without being damaged. Goods that are not time-sensitive in that way do not fit the reason this particular ground exists.
The purpose is prevention, not routine handling
The ground is framed around preventing loss or damage — a protective purpose tied to goods that would otherwise be lost or damaged. Routine handling of perishable stock that is not actually at risk during the rest day in question does not carry the same justification as work genuinely needed to keep goods from spoiling or being damaged before the next scheduled workday.
How this fits with the rest of Article 92
This ground sits among several others in Article 92 that each respond to a distinct, concrete risk — disasters, urgent machinery repair, continuous operations — rather than a general business need. Perishable goods share that same quality: the risk is specific, time-sensitive, and tied to the goods themselves, which is why the article treats it as its own recognized ground for requiring rest-day work. The article also allows the Secretary of Labor and Employment to recognize circumstances analogous to these listed grounds, but that is a separate determination from the perishable-goods ground itself, which already stands on its own.