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33
canteens and restaurants, partly because of the concern which
was expressed because of the great increase in cases of food
poisoning and partly to encourage the necessary improvements
in shops and restaurants following the lack of maintenance
which had occurred during the war and in the immediate post
war period when building or rebuilding was severely restricted
by building licensing.
The guilds were a free association of food traders which
were supported by the traders themselves making an annual subscription,
and they were given the moral support of local
authorities. It was usual to grant a badge or document
which could be displayed as an advertisement to those premises
which attained a standard which was approved by the guild.
Advice on standards was normally given by the local
authorities, but the traders themselves fixed their own
standard, usually in accordance with the advice given, but not
always so,
In general the officers of the local authority, as being
unbiassed observers, carried out the inspections for the
necessary approval before the badges or other emblems were
awarded.
Many difficulties were experienced in the operation of
these guilds after the first enthusiasm had died away. It
was particularly difficult to judge at what stage the lowering
of the standards justified taking away the badge of approval.
It was also difficult to obtain any improvement of the agreed
standards in accordance with improvements in the techniques of
food handling or the introduction of new materials or
apparatus (e.g. new impermeable surface materials (formica,
etc.) and new refrigerated stores and display furniture).
There was also in some cases a difficult position created when
a prosecution on food matters appeared to be justified in
premises which bore the guild's badge of approval.
In practice it was found that if any shop or restaurant
lost the approval of the guild they at once resigned from the
guild. At the other extreme some of the large firms - such
as Sainsbury's and Marks & Spencer - refused to join the
guilds on the grounds that their standards were always and in
every way superior to the standards of the guilds. Gradually
the badge of a clean food guild became a sign of mediocrity
and it was generally with a sigh of relief both by traders and
local authorities that the coming of the Food Hygiene Regulations,
1956, gave a good cause for killing off the clean food
guilds.