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I am indebted to the Public Analyst, (Mr. T.McLachlan), for the following
Report:
"ANNUAL REPORT OF THE PUBLIC ANALYST 1968
During the year 1968, 1178 items of food and drugs were examined. Of
these 18 samples were taken formally and 1128 informally, the remaining
32 articles were submitted as the result of complaints.

Two milk bottles were the subject of complaint during the year. One
contained a snail, the shell of which was broken, indicating that it had
been squashed into the bottle, and the liquid between the snail and its
shell was neutral in reaction, so that it appeared that the snail must
have been inserted after the milk had been removed. The other contained
fragments of rusted iron turnings, due probably to a thermite firework
having been exploded in it.
A Goat's Milk yoghourt was unsatisfactory. It was labelled as containing
"The Bacillus of Long Life", but it contained 1,000,000 yeasts
and 9,500mould's per gramme with comparatively few bacteria present.
A sterilised cream contained only 22.18 per cent instead of 23 per
cent of fat and was 3.6 per cent deficient. The solids-not-fat were 6.74
per cent and the water 71,08 per cent, indicating that the cream had been
prepared by centrifuging to a higher concentration of fat and then diluting
with water.
Although the analytical results found on a butter ghee appeared to
be satisfactory for ghee the product had a most offensive odour of rancidity.
The top layer of fat in the jar had been completely bleached by
oxidation and all the Vitamin A destroyed. This deterioration was due to
a poor seal on an insufficiently filled jar.
A sample of soft cheese was found to contain 68 per cent of water
and only 16.3 per cent of fat, so that it should have been sold as a "medium
fat soft cheese" and not as a full fat cheese.
An Emmentaler cheese was labelled "45% Fett i.Tr.", and a Danish Blue
Cheese "50% Fett i.Tr.", but the expression "i.Tr." is unsatisfactory as
English housewives do not know its meaning. The cheese themselves were
quite satisfactory.
A buttered cheese spread failed to comply with the Weights and Measures
Act 1963, inasmuch as the weight was given in grammes only and not
in imperial weight. Its fat content was given as "mat.gras", while that
of a cheese spread was also described as "Matiere Grasse", without stating
that this meant on the dry weight and not the weight as sold. The
cheese spread also contravened the Cheese Regulations 1965, in that it
contained 52.85 per cent of water and only 45 per cent of fat on the dry
B. 22