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inspection is a demonstration of the need of supplementing and co-ordinating the existing local agencies
and of evolving a system of control which, while causing the least possible interference with trade in
foodstuffs generally, will deal effectively with the fraudulent trader.
A second question of importance which emerges into view, as the result of experience of methods
of food inspection, is one which has concern with the existing method of dealing with trade refuse.
Difficulties are experienced by inspectors in obtaining possession of unsound food. It is said not to be
"intended for the food of man," or not to be deposited "for the purposes of sale or of preparation for
sale."Traders say they are only "middlemen" and have no control over" goods in transit" and
so forth. Once more, it is urged that the vendor should be afforded the opportunity of sorting out the
good from the bad before the inspector comes upon the scene, and in practice the exhibition of a notice
proclaiming that such sorting has not yet been carried out has, as a matter of fact, again and again
rendered the inspector powerless in particular instances. Then there is the question of the cost of
disposing of refuse. The owner may have unsound food removed as trade refuse, paying the sanitary
authority for the service rendered, or, on the other hand, he may be so fortunate as to find a contractor
who will pay him for the privilege of being allowed to remove such waste material. Some large firms
destroy their own unsound food, but in cases in which this is done the health authority has no means
of accurately knowing how far the instructions given are carried out, and indeed some strong
suspicion has been entertained, in particular instances, that leakage has occurred, and that surrendered
or condemned goods have after all been consumed as food by employes or others. The not inconsiderable
cost of removal of trade refuse by sanitary authorities severely handicaps the honest trader, who,
it may be, sees his neighbour over the way actually receiving money for material of a kind he himself
has to pay to have removed. An egg merchant recently informed me that considerably larger quantities
of bad eggs would be handed over to health authorities for the purpose of destruction if the cost were
not so great, and an inspector with many years' experience tells me that since the authority he serves
raised, some years ago, their price for removing unsound food from 3s. 6d. to 7s. 2d. a load, much less
unsound food has been surrendered.
An obvious remedy for these difficulties is the vesting of ownership of unsound food in the sanitary
authorities, at the same time imposing upon those authorities the obligation to remove and destroy it free
of charge. The adoption of this proposal would make it possible to ensure that unsound food which
had been once surrendered or condemned should not find its way back into circulation as a commodity
saleable for the food of man. At the present time sanitary authorities in London only quite exceptionally
destroy unsound food by their own agents, the services of a contractor being as a rule requisitioned.
In some cases the food is " denatured " before it is handed over to the contractor; in others a system
obtains by which an officer of the sanitary authority visits the contractor's premises, in order to see
tins " spiked," meat treated with chemicals or thrown into digestors, and so on; in other cases still
the responsibility of making sure that the condemned food is not eaten by human beings rests with the
contractor. In some London boroughs a contractor is prepared to pay traders or sanitary authorities
for goods regarded as unsound, and at the time of my inquiry, prices ranging from 30s. a ton downwards
were being quoted for condemned meat, the contractor bearing, moreover, the whole cost of removal.
The fat constituted presumably the main source of profit derivable from such meat, though I was told
in one instance that a uniform price of 1d. a stone was paid for meat of all sorts, however emaciated
the carcase might be, and even for "livers." A common practice in the case of the less valuable
damaged tins of fruit was for a contractor to remove them free of charge; it was suggested
that solder was recoverable from tins and thus gave them some small value.
I have been assured that the experience of contractors shows that it is only with extreme difficulty,
if at all, that employes can be restrained from abstracting particular pieces of meat or the
contents of tins for their own domestic consumption; indeed, the manager of a large business who has
had to deal with vast quantities of tinned meat, tells me his firm has abandoned the practice of disposing
of the "blown tins" to a contractor, on account of the risk the firm believed themselves to incur of
finding their goods associated with outbreaks of illness. It is, of course, obvious that large profits
could be made by manipulating condemned food so as to make it again saleable, and I understand
that a manure manufacturer, who recently undertook to deal with a number of urrenderedtins of meat,
elected to have them removed to premises outside London, which, as the curiosity of an inspector of the
London Sanitary Authority concerned led him to ascertain, bore externally the inscription "potted
shrimp manufacturer." Clearly, in so important a matter as this the whole responsibility should rest
with the sanitary authority, and condemned food should not be trusted out of the hands of the
authority's servants.
A third point of importance is the need for special supervision in the case of particular classes
of premises used in connection with the storage or manipulation of food. This need makes itself particularly
felt in connection with inspection of river-born foodstuffs, for most of the large cold stores
in London are situated near the river. Its existence in the case of cold storage premises in London
generally was recognised by the Public Health Committee some years ago and' was brought by the Council
to the notice of the Local Government Board. The suggestion was made that such premises should be
registered and that a health authority should have power similar to that given by the existing Dairies
and Cowsheds Orders, under wh ch premises, before being used, are required to be approved as being
structurally fitted for the purposes contemplated, and should be subsequently subject to inspection. If
power to regulate cold storage premises on the lines indicated were given, it would no doubt be deemed
desirable to deal also with premises at which sausage-making, potted-meat-manufacture and various
preservative processes are carried on, for at all such premises the need for special supervision will of course
be generally admitted.