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Accidental contamination of foodstuffs can almost always be put down to either the human
element or faulty equipment or some other failure in the organisation. These can be remedied by
expert advice should the firm be willing to co-operate.
In place of prosecutions, therefore, the journal advocates treating deficiencies as mismanagement
with proceedings instituted only in proven cases of malpractice.
In practice, local authorities already use their discretion more often than is supposed.
Where foreign bodies have been found in food the causes are considered and action taken
accordingly. Whether the firm or individual is to be warned or prosecuted would depend on
circumstances, but a great deal depends on the co-operation between the defaulter and the
authority.
If a firm will not co-operate in an investigation and will not sensibly consider waysof
avoiding any repetition prosecution might be the only course left. Usually, however, the local
authority is not called upon to consider any action until the public health inspector has exhausted
all the possibilities of advice and warning.
There is no doubt that court cases have their effect. Local authorities do not prosecute
to be vindictive; they are not interested in the penalty. It is the publicity from the case and the
corrective measures taken afterwards to protect the consumer that are more important.
CATERING AND FOOD HYGIENE
Messrs. Thompson and Flynn, the two Public Health Inspectors who specialise in the hygiene
of catering establishments, report as follows
When we are asked at the end of the year to comment on our work in connection with catering
establishments, we sometimes wonder how many workers, wending their various ways in their
thousands to the City each day, give any thought to the vast organisation which is necessary to
meet their need for a mid-day meal and to satisfy their insatiable demand for countless cups of
tea and coffee, or glasses of perhaps stronger beverages. During the war and immediately afterwards
a minor social revolution occurred in our feeding habits and undoubtedly people now eat out
on a scale never before experienced in this country. The advent and development of the luncheon
voucher has assisted this trend and is in fact at the present time the basis of most of the popular
catering in the City. Unfortunately, the average price of these luncheon vouchers is now so low
that many caterers, faced with rising costs in every direction, find their ingenuity increasingly
taxed to provide a meal within the limits of the value of these vouchers. Overtheyears profit
margins have been gradually whittled away, and if this process continues it is doubtful if catering
will continue to be an economic proposition in the City. Inevitably, therefore, the City
workers must be reconciled to higher prices if they wish the existing facilities to remain unimpaired.
Of course, as Public Health Officers, our main concern is to ensure that food is prepared and
served under cleanly conditions, but hygienic premises and modern equipment cost money, and
we cannot divorce ourselves from the realities of the hard economic facts of life.
The price of labour looms large in the budgeting of all restaurateurs, even though catering
continues to be a Cinderella of industries and notwithstanding the fact that, in comparison with
other trades, the reward of the workers is somewhat meagre. Actually the recruitment of efficient
staff is the principal headache of the City caterer, and it is an unfortunate but inescapable fact
that the disinterested low calibre worker is the main obstacle to any improvement in the general
standard of hygiene and service. It is unlikely that many employees in the catering industry are
there because they have exercised a deliberate choice, and it is only the unbalanced state of the
labour market which enables some of them to hold down and retain their job. Important as the
design and construction of premises may be, a satisfactory standard of hygiene can be obtained
only by effectively educating and training the food worker. Experience indicates, however, that
the attainment of this worthy objective is a slow process fraught with many disappointments.
Perhaps here lies a further challenge for the future !
Washing up is, of course, one of the eternal problems of the catering trade, and one of the
most monotonous and least rewarding of occupations. We have, therefore, spent much time discussing
with architects, manufacturers of washing-up machines, as well as with caterers themselves
what we consider to be ideal facilities for the execution of this important and essential
operation, and considerable thought has been devoted to the consideration of the best practicable
means of reducing the drudgery attached to this thankless task. The extent to which our endeavours
have succeeded is a matter of conjecture. Sometimes, perhaps, there is a tendency to
place too great a reliance upon gadgets as the solution to all washing-up problems. Undoubtedly
some machines on the market at the present time are comparatively useless and their installation
is the direct result of the exercise of high pressure salesmanship. People may become mesmerized
by a machine, and the disillusionment is greater when it fails to be the panacea of all their
troubles and difficulties.
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