View report page

68
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of
The Metropolitan Borough of Chelsea.
Your Worship, My Lord, Ladies and Gentlemen,
During the year 1958, 400 samples of food and drugs were examined,
18 of which were taken formally and 382 informally.
Adverse comments were made against 21 samples and the incidence
of adulteration or incorrect labelling may be classified as follows:-
Number of
samples
examined.
Number of
samples
adulterated.
Milk 200 -
Other foods 197 21
Drugs 3 -
A sample of Yoghourt contained only 0.1 per cent of fat, and
unless sold as a skimmed milk Yoghourt it must be prepared from full
cream milk. The manufacturers agreed to amend the label to include
the words "separated milk" in the description of the product.
An egg was submitted for examination because on cooking the
white was found to be red. Two unopened eggs submitted at the same
time were found to be satisfactory, but the white of the egg about
which complaint was made was full of bacilli which were believed to
be Serratia marcescens. This is the bacterium responsible for
forming red patches in bread.
A product labelled as a "Milk Shake in a Straw" was considered
to be incorrectly labelled, as milk had to be added and no milk was
contained in the straw. It was considered that the description
should be "Milk Shake Straws", or "Flavoured Straws for Milk Shakes".
A loaf of bread contained numerous pieces of dark grey matter
embedded in the bottom of the loaf, consisting of pieces of bread or
bread crumbs from the tin in which the loaf had been baked, showing
that the tin had not been cleaned before use. These dark fragments
contained more oil than is normally present in bread and it was
considered that the tin had been greased before use and that the oil
or fat used for greasing had been readily absorbed into the dried
bread crumbs.
An imitation cream cake was received as a result of a complaint
and was found to be mouldy between the surfaces of the pastry and of
the imitation cream filling. The cake must have been manufactured
for at least five days, and the conditions of manufacture must have
been unsatisfactory. The cake was considered unfit for sale.
A cheese spread stated to be prepared from "Cream Cheese base
with Danish Blue Cheese" was found to contain 47.9 per cent of total
solid matter and 2U per cent of fat, and therefore the cream cheese
could not be the ingredient in largest proportion. The manufacturers