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It is not made clear in the Act that the Food and Drags Amendment Act, 1954, repealed The Defence
(Sale of Food) Regulations, 1943. This Act never came into force as such, but only in the consolidated
Act of 1955, and the repeal of numerous Orders which has thus taken place may easily be overlooked.
It would have been useful had the 1955 Act re-enumerated repeals brought about by the Act of 1954.
The Food Hygiene Regulations, 1955, are not, in the main, the concern of the public analyst;
but during the year several Statutory Instruments controlling the composition of foods under the new
Food and Drugs Act came into force.
The Food Standards (Butter and Margarine) Regulations, 1955, prescribed standards for butter
and margarine similar generally to those previously given in the Food and Drags Act, 1938, by which
it was forbidden to sell butter or margarine containing more than 16 per cent. of water, or margarine
containing more than 10 per cent. of butter fat. The Labelling of Food (Amendment) Regulations,
1955, re-enacted the provisions of Sections 32 and 33 of the Food and Drugs Act, 1938, regarding the
labelling of margarine and margarine-cheese and for the amendment of the Regulations by substituting
the words "Imitation Cream" for "Synthetic Cream," wherever they appeared in the Order. At the
same time this amendment made provision for the labelling of margarine making claims for cream or
milk-fat and requiring these to be stated as "milk-fat, equivalent to (y) per cent. of butter per cent."
where 'y' represents the actual butter equivalent of the milk or cream. Your analyst is unhappy
about these last provisions. At one time it was common to advertise that margarine contained butter,
so that it became necessary with the Butter and Margarine Act, 1907, to stipulate that a road must
separate factories used for the manufacture of butter and margarine. Later in the Food and Drugs
(Adulteration) Act, 1928, it was made illegal to label margarine except with the word "margarine"
together with a descriptive name approved by the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries. With the
advent of the Food and Drags Act, 1938, a retrograde step was made which permitted the label to
state the percentage of butter-fat present. Advantage of this was first taken by an overseas importer
some four or five years ago, when the permission granted by the 1938 Act had been completely forgotten
by most food and drug authorities. Shortly after, vendors of margarine began to claim the presence
of cream in margarine and, instead of supressing this, the Ministry has attempted to regularise the
position. In consequence there are now on the market cheese spreads and processed cheeses containing
cheese made from separated milk with claims for the presence of "cream" although the total milkfat
is less than the quantity of milk-fat which would be present naturally if a full-cream milk cheese
had been employed for their manufacture. The position has become even worse with the introduction
of shortenings, which claim to "be enriched with 10 per cent. of butter" and to be "richer," so that
one can use less.
The Mineral Oil in Food (Amendment) Regulations, 1955, permit any chewing compound to contain
up to 12.5 per cent. of microcrystalline wax, but public analysts do not approve this order, especially
since only a few years ago the Ministry of Food pressed them to endeavour to supress completely the
use of paraffin wax in chewing gum. There is no real difference between paraffin wax and microcrystalline
wax from the food aspect or that of detection.
The Bread (Amendment No. 2) Order, 1956, abolished all price control on bread, and also abolished
definitions of national flour, national bread, national brown bread, and national milk bread. With
this Order came the Flour (Composition) Order, 1956, which prescribes requirements for calcium, iron,
vitamin B1 and nicotinic acid in all types of flour and it is left to Food and Drug Authorities to enforce
the Order.
The Milk and Dairies (Channel Islands and South Devon Milk) Order, 1956, now made under the
Food and Drugs Act, requires those milks to contain not less than 4 per cent. of milk-fat. Previously
no action could be taken under the Food and Drugs Act if such milk did not contain 4 per cent. of fat.
The Sale of Food (Weights and Measures: Bacon and Ham) Regulations, 1956, and the Pre-Packed
Food (Weights and Measures: Marking) (Amendment No. 2) Regulations require bacon and ham to
be sold only by weight and any pre-packed bacon and ham to have a mark on the outer container
showing the weight contained in the package.
The Food Standards (Curry Powder) (Amendment) Regulations, 1956, and the Food Standards
(Tomato Ketchup) (Amendment) Regulations, 1956, permit curry powder to contain up to 20 parts
per million of lead, and permit tomato ketchup, catsup, sauce or relish to contain up to 20 parts
per million of copper instead of 50 parts per million calculated on the dry solids. These small quantities
are hardly likely to have an adverse effect on the health of the consumers.
During the year the Food Standards Committee of the Ministry issued several Reports:—