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on the part of a few members of the public to engage in a type of legal
blackmail against food manufacturers and your analyst has been perturbed
at being asked to give certificates for nails in cut bread, when the
nails must have been inserted after cutting the loaf. On another occasion
a bottle of milk was contaminated with cat's urine and possessed a most
objectionable odour, but careful examination proved that the contamination
must have been introduced after the milk had been bottled and the cream
layer had become so firm that the contaminant did not penetrate the cream
layer. One sees convictions reported in the press at the present time
which give cause for grave anxiety, and your analyst is firmly of the
opinion that the present tendency for complaints to be dealt with by the
local authority will be found to serve the interests of the manufacturers
as well as those of the consumer. In general the manufacturer can
usually arrange for his own expert to examine the suspected article in
conjunction with the public analyst in the event of there being any doubt.
Such joint consultation must be to his advantage as it provides him with
an insight into the general administyration of the Food and Drugs Act.
Several Statutory Instruments controlling the composition of foods
under the new Food and Drugs Act came into force during the year.
The Food Standards (Butter and Margarine) Regulations, 1955,
prescribed standards for butter and margarine similar generally to those
previously given in the Food and Drugs Act, 1938, by which it was forbidden
to sell butter or margarine containing more than 16 per cent of water, or
margarine containing more than 10 per cent of butter fat. The Labelling
of Food (Amendment) Regulations, 1955, re-enacted the provisions of
Sections 32 and 33 of the Food and Drugs Act, 1938, regarding the
labelling of margarine and margarine-cheese and for the amendment of the
Regulations by substituting the words "Imitation Cream" for "Synthetic
Cream" wherever they appeared in the 0rder. At the same time this
amendment made provision for the labelling of margarine making claims for
cream or milk fat and requiring these to be stated as "milk-fat
equivalent to (y)% of butter%" where "y" represents the actual butter
equivalent to the milk or cream. Your analyst is unhappy about these
last provisions. At one time it was common to advertise that margarine
contained butter, so that it became necessary with the Butter and Margarine
Act, 1907, to stipulate that a road must separate factories used for the
manufacture of butter and margarine. Later in the Food and Drugs
(Adulteration) Act, 1928, it was made illegal to label margarine except
with the word "margarine" together with a descriptive name approved by
the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries. With the advent of the Food
and Drugs Act, 1938, a retrograde step was made by permitting the label
to state the percentage of butter fat present. Advantage of this was
first taken by an overseas importer some four or five years ago, when
the permission granted by the 1938 Act had been completely forgotten by
most food and drug authorities. Shortly after, vendors of margarine
began to claim the presence of cream in margarine and instead of
suppressing this the Ministry has attempted to regularise the position.
In consequence there are now on the market cheese spreads and processed
cheeses containing cheese made from separated milk with claims for the
presence of "cream" although the total milk fat is less than the quantity
of milk fat which would be present naturally if a full-cream milk cheese
had been employed for their manufacture. The position has become even