London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Barking 1961

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Barking]

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supervised, can lead to foreign matter being overlooked.
In most cases manufacturers take great care to ensure the purity of their
products, but it is necessary to remind them of their responsibilities when com-
plaint is received.
It is unusual to receive complaints from purchasers concerning food which is
unsound and this may be because of the improved methods of distribution, storage
and display adopted by the retail food trade and, to a measure, to the wider
cation of the principles of hygiene.
Refrigerated stores have been in use for many years but the increased use of
refrigerated display counters is a comparatively recent development. Such counters
provide safe storage whilst still allowing the housewife to see the goods available.
Food Sampling
The popularity of self-service stores has increased the demand for pre-packed
goods and if the public is to be protected, a close watch must be kept on the labels
on the packets. Your officers took two hundred and twenty-five samples during the
years to ensure that articles of food sold to the public are genuine and that labels
contained no wrong information or exaggerated claims.
The four cases in which the food was considered to be not genuine were all
out products and are listed in Table 9. In one case too much preservative had
been added to sausages, but the other three involved the meat content of the
articles.
Efforts are being made to secure the declaration of a standard of meat content
'""variety of me a. products.

Table No.7

SAMPLES SUBMITTED TO PUBLIC ANALYST 1ST JANUARY TO 31ST DECEMBER, 1961

Almond Flavour1
Apple Chanotte1
Arctic Roll1
Bakewell Tart1
Beefburgers1
Beef Paste1
Biscuits1
Borscht1
Bread1
Butter1
Buttered Brazils1
Cake Mix1
Casserole Steak1
Cereal3
Cheese5
Cheese and Shrimp Spread .1
Cheese and Tomato Spread1
Cherry Sunda,e1

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