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that there is no room for improvement. It is also true that much of the time and effort of everyone
concerned is nullified in too many instances by the "couldn't care less attitude of catering
staffs. They seem incapable of realizing that by their shoddy practices they are endangering
the health of their fellow workers.
Whilst there are within the City over a thousand catering establishments, the number operating
on any given day is never precisely known. Premises, for some reason or another, are being
constantly closed down, whilst new ones are always being opened.
Perhaps it may be fairly said that whilst progress and improvement have been substantial
and continuous and to a degree encouraging, it is difficult to visualize that a state of affairs
will ever be achieved when it will be possible to relax vigilance. Nor is it likely that we will
ever be able to assess the position numerically and say that a precise number of City restaurants
still require attention. In any case, what is accepted as being satisfactory in design and construction
to-day may be considered sub-standard a few years hence. In other words, there will
always be scope for further achievement and improvement in a field of activity such as food
hygiene where one is always striving for, but seldom achieving the ideal.
In endeavouring to secure more hygienic conditions in the preparation and handling of food
during the past year, it has again been our impression that the general public could play a much
more effective part than they do at present.
Undoubtedly they are long-suffering in many directions; they are exhorted to do this and
not to do that, but at the risk of being dubbed as arbiters of public behaviour, we do ask that
they object to obvious malpractices and dirty habits as they occur and when they observe them.
Invariably during the course of daily inspections some deficiency is seen on the part of
individuals which is corrected forthwith when the obvious is pointed out to them. It is also
fairly certain that managements at least would take action on their own initiative as and when
their customers complain justifiably. In many cases of customers complaints they are concerned
with bad service and poor quality and while we, as officers, may deplore these causes of complaint
we can only work within the limits imposed by the sometimes arbitrary boundaries of
hygiene. The remedy for this type of complaint is solely in the hands of the customers themselves
— i.e. not to patronise those catering establishments where they receive the service
about which they complain. Lack of customers can effectively close unsatisfactory businesses
far quicker than the sometimes ponderous procedure of the law.
The efficient and adequate ventilation of kitchens, and indeed of restaurants themselves,
especially those situated in basements or lower floors, still gives rise to serious difficulties.
Many proprietors of old premises, and some in the case of new buildings, are unpleasantly surprised
at the cost of resolving many of the problems posed. Since the end of the last war when
our attention was again turned to improving the hygiene in kitchens and the conditions under
which the staff work, we have had constantly to re-appraise the results of many plants which
were installed at our instigation. Unfortunately, all too large a number of these new installations
have been far from successful. Perhaps in some measure the failure is ours for not appreciating
the magnitude and complexity of some of the difficulties, but obscuring the whole
picture has been the underlying fact that there is very little information available which can be
brought directly to bear in each case. Every kitchen is an individual problem for the ventilating
engineer and each one must be treated on its merits. There is no easy way to success and it
certainly will not be achieved by assuming that the minimum requirements suggested by the
local authority are sufficient in every case.
We are also faced with another problem which has made itself apparent in recent years.
Architects in designing their structures — probably two, three or even more years in advance of
the settlement of final kitchen details — make every endeavour to anticipate the position and
sizes of vertical ducts to roof level for purposes of exhaust ventilation. Because of lack of
information as to the ultimate intention of caterers of their requirements and also the installation
of kitchens never envisaged in the original design, no effective measures can apparently be
taken to provide integral horizontal trunking and duct work in the majority of cases. We are then
presented with long tortuous ducts, hung on ceilings, twisting and wending their way around
structural members to the fan rooms and vertical shafts. The problems of routine cleansing are
immense and a paradise is created for the harbourage of various species of vermin.
All too often there is a tendency to think of kitchen ventilation in terms of extract systems
only, allowing the inlets to be taken care of by means of window openings and similar arrangements.
Unfortunately uncontrolled openings such as windows do not always act as fresh air
inlets but allow smells and odours to disperse and permeate into adjacent offices with the consequent
complaints which follow. It seems sooner or later that all kitchens in congested areas
such as the City of London must be regarded as "enclosed or sealed" units with motorised inlet
systems for effective distribution of clean fresh air.
It seems inevitable in a mechanical age where machine or mechanical contraptions perform
highly complicated and precise engineering work that people should turn to a machine to relieve
them of the monotonous but essential task of washing up. Unfortunately, they have imagined
9.