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A meat pie contained black material which was found to be charred meat with a considerable
amount of fat and was doubtless due to some fault in the production line.
A beef risotto required 1 ounce of butter or margarine for cooking, but no mention of this
was made on the main label.
A complaint was received regarding a cream of chicken soup which was submitted with
two other cans of the same product. The complaint soup appeared curdled, but mixed sati sfactorily
on heating, but the contents of the two control cans possessed a definite flavour of curry
rather than the bland flavour expected of a cream of chicken soup, and this may have been the
reason for the complaint.
Some mushroom cubes contained 50 per cent of starch, 14 per cent of salt, and 5 per cent
of fat, together with garlic and onions, all foreign to mushrooms. A mushroom cube must consist
essentially of dried mushroom and this product was in fact a mushroom soup cube. The product
was incorrectly labelled as the list of ingredients on the carton and on the wrappers of the cubes
did not agree with each other.
An illustration of cocks crowing on the label of a gravy additive was considered misleading.
The product, moreover, was described as "Chicken flavoured" when in fact, no chicken
was present. Some pickled pigs' snouts were coloured violet. The brine in which they had been
pickled was examined, but no artificial colour could be detected. Traces of iron and copper,
however, were present and it was thought that the pickling might have taken place in a wooden
vat from which tannin colours had been extracted and that these colours had combined with the
traces of iron and copper.
An insect found inside a packet of dripping was identified as a millipede, Nopoiulus
minutus, generally associated with the North-West of England, and it had probably fallen on to
the surface of the dripping after the fat had been cooled.
Some fillets of anchovies contained 8.8 parts per million of lead, whereas the maximum
permitted quantity is 5 parts per million. Six further samples were examined and the lead contents
ranged from 2 to 5.6 parts per million, indicating that more care was required in packing these
anchovies.
The label of a carton of glazing powder required amendment, both the relative sizes of
print and the illustration being incorrect.
The illustrations on two cartons of table jellies indicated the presence of fruit although
the flavour was essentially artificial. Some jelly crystals were not labelled with their ingredients
as required by the Food Standards Table Jelly (Amendment and Revocation) Regulations, 1962.
Some mixed dried fruit was unpleasant and gritty. The acid-insoluble ash was 0.21 per
cent, whereas normally it is below 0.06 per cent. A further sample submitted was clean and the
acid-insoluble ash was only 0.06 per cent.
Two cans of prunes were received owing to a suspicion that babies were being upset by
them. Their tin contents were 138 and 78.5 parts per million respectively and, in spite of the
Ministry's recommendation that 250 parts per million of tin be permitted, your Analyst considered
these prunes inferior and that they might have been the cause of the trouble.
Three fruit juices and a tomato juice were all old stock, but the Council was informed that
these lines had been discontinued. Three samples of lemon juice contained 465, 420 and 365
parts per million of sulphur dioxide, as compared with the maximum of 350 parts per million permitted
by the Preservatives in Food Order. A sparkling banana-ade had a sediment at the bottom
of the bottle due to fermentation and was found to contain 16,000 yeasts per ml., whereas a product
of this type must be sterile.
A product sold as Mango juice contained not more than 33 per cent of frujt juice and three
cans of carrot juice contained respectively only 30, 40 and 55 per cent of carrot juice. Some
canned carrots were mouldy and decomposed on receipt. There was a hole at the base of the can
which had probably been made some time before the can was opened, and the label had obviously
been contaminated by some solution other than water, but it was difficult to understand how the
retailer or the customer failed to notice this at the time of purchase.
A can of mixed vegetable salad was incorrectly labelled as it contained 50 per cent of
gherkins, listed as sixth in magnitude, and other ingredients were listed as green and white roots
without giving their names
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