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94
Inspection of Food.
From time to time during the year I have reported on my personal
inspection of places in the Borough where food is prepared for sale or
where it is exposed for sale. In many instances I was accompanied by
the Chairman of the Public Health Committee. Our practice of having
a three-monthly report from the Ward Sanitary Inspectors on the cleanly
state of places where food is prepared has much improved the eating
houses and the potted meat and sausage factories of the Borough. In
regard to retail shops the tinned food examined there has shown that
constant supervision is necessary on the part of the Sanitary Inspector.
I am strongly of opinion that the Inspector who has to deal with the
landing of food stuffs at the riverside wharves, should, when necessary,
inspect food exposed for sale in any part of the Borough, as his
experience of what is being landed would enable him to say what foods
when examined were likely to prove unsound. This work by the Pood
Inspector should in no way relieve the Ward Sanitary Inspector of his
duty in regard to the detection of unsound food.
The whole of the time of the Food Inspector during the busy
months of the year, is fully taken up, as it should be, with food coming
into the district, whether by road, rail or river. In the two or three
months when trade is quiet, the Inspector attends as well to the sanitary
condition of the warehouses and residential property on the river bank.
I am sure that excellent work has been done by the Food Inspector
during the year under consideration in spite, I might almost say, of the
small power he possesses in regard to foods in transit stored at the
wharves and warehouses. We hope that the Bill now before
Parliament will remedy the present state of affairs in regard to the
inspection and seizure of unsound food whilst stored at the wharves.
UNSOUND FOOD.