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114
SECTION G
Greenwich Guild of Hygiene
During the year the support and encouragement of the Council
and the Health Department continued to be extended to food
traders who were willing to improve their premises and their methods
of preparing, handling and selling of food. At most meetings of the
Public Health Committee there were one or two traders presented
with the Certificate of Hygiene as official recognition of the high
standards of hygiene attained by them.
It is true that with the adoption of the new Food Byelaws
Health Departments can now demand higher standards of practice
and there may be some who feel that such legally enforcible standards
render the Guild of Hygiene redundant. Such people fail to
recognise that the primary purpose of the Guild is to encourage
traders voluntarily to reach the highest standards of hygiene. The
display of a certificate endorsed by the Council is a guarantee to
the public that such standards will be maintained.
It must be admitted that the educational and social activities
of the Guild have had disappointing support, but although desirable,
these were not the primary functions.
The number of certificates earned and displayed by traders
is the primary purpose of the Guild's existence and these certificates
now total 89.
If members of the public continue to show their appreciation
of such enlightened traders the Guild will continue to flourish.
On the other hand, if the general public are prepared to accept
willingly second-hand service, certificate holders may become
discouraged and the good work of the Guild will be nullified. To my
mind this would be a misfortune. Irrespective of how high legal
standards are set there will always be the need to recognise officially
the efforts of traders who are prepared to go beyond bare legal
requirements. The future of the Guild of Hygiene is undoubtedly
in the hands of the general public. The Health Department must
depend to a large extent on their vigilance as there is a limit to the
time the Food Inspectors can spend on this aspect of their work.