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65
the manufacturers finally agreed to meet the wishes of your analyst.
Legislation and Official Reports.
The amount of fresh legislation and the number of official reports
issued has again shown a decrease during the year. The Public Analysts
Regulations have been re-issued in order to provide a new form of
certificate to meet conditions resulting from the Food and Drugs Act,
1955. With the new Act it may be necessary for a public analysts if he
is unable to carry out the whole of the work required. to pass a sample
to the public analyst for some other area for examination.) This revised
certificate provides at the same time for those cases where adverse
comment may be mad# on a label, advertisement, or other matter, which
may or may not be dependent on chemical analysis, but on which the public
analyst is the most competent authority.
The Colouring Matter in Food Regulations came into force in 1957 and
revoked that part of the Preservatives, etc,, in Food Regulations relating
to the addition of colours to foods, Although the regulations came into
force on the 30th June, 1957, they do not come into effective operation
in the current year as regards sale of food by retail. This was essential
if a smooth flow from the manufacturer of food colours to the retail sale
of foods was to be obtainedo The order therefore stipulated that the
manufacturer of food colours or compounds for colouring and flavouring must
comply with the order by the 30th September, 1957, whereas in general it may
be stated that food sold by retail must comply with the requirements of the
order by the 30th June, 1958. For over thirty years the Preservatives,
etc0, in Food Regulations have provided a short list of colours, whose
addition to food was forbidden. Many colours have been found to be suspect
of causing cancer, and the new order permits the use of thirty organic
chemical dyes together with a few more or less natural ones, which have
been used over many years. It is hardly necessary to state that this order
imposes much more work on the analyst for its efficient administration.
The Pre-Packed Foods (Weights and Measures 3 Marking) Regulations were
made under Sectiors 7 and 123 of the Food and Drugs Act, but are administered
by Weights and Measures Authorities only and not by other Food Authorities.
When there is a matter of the content of a particular food, mixed with other
ingredients, one would have thought it better to handle the matter via the
food inspector and the public analyst. Your analyst had submitted to him
a tin marked to contain a definite weight of smoke salmon, but in which
more oil (undeclared) was present than salmon, the declared weight being
that of the total ingredients of the tin, Whilst this matter can be handled
in other ways, one would have thought that this order would have been the
simplest one.
The Food Standards Committee issued a Report on a Standard for Icecream.
Essentially this report proposes to maintain the present standards
for ice cream with the prohibition of the use of saccharin and other
artificial sweeteners, except in the case of ice cream made for diabetics,
which could be suitably labelled. The Committee recommend, however, that