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200
Memorandum.
The object of this Bill is to prevent margarine from being coloured
so as to resemble butter and prevent its fraudulent sale as such.
The report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on
Food Products Adulteration, 1896, at page 29 says:—
"However, your committee cannot but feel that the adulteration
of butter with margarine and the fraudulent sale of margarine
for butter are greatly facilitated in many instances by the artificial
use of ingredients to colour margarine. While your committee are
reluctant to interfere with the manufacture of any edible commodity
they cannot in the interests of honest trading arrive at any conclusion
other than to recommend the absolute prohibition of the
artificial colouring of margarine to resemble or imitate butter."
The last report of the Local Government Board, Part 2, page 102,
states that:—
"The fact that one sample of butter in every sixteen was condemned
shows that the practice of selling margarine when butter
is demanded has not been put down."
The present definition of margarine, as contained in the Butter and
Margarine Act, 1907, is "any article of food whether mixed with butter
or not which resembles butter and is not milk-blended butter."
The purpose of the present Bill is to prevent margarine from
resembling butter, and would destroy the existing definition.
The definition in this Bill is so framed as to cover the substance now
known as margarine, but it is necessary to exclude lard from the definition,
and therefore the fat of beef and mutton is specifically mentioned.
Percentage of Water in Milk-Blended Butter. Suggested
Amendment of the Butter and Margarine Act, 1907.
The Battersea Borough Council requested the Board of Agriculture
and Fisheries to take steps with a view to the amendment of the Butter
and Margarine Act, 1907, to secure reduction in the percentage of water
allowable in milk-blended butter from 24 per cent. to 16 per cent., which
is the maximum permissible in other kinds of butter. The Public Health