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PART III - FOOD
Milk Supply.
A register of Dairies and Milk Distributors (other than
dairy farms and farmers) is maintained and the numbers shown on
the Register are:-
Milk Distributors 30
Dairies 2
No action could be taken in respect of a complaint about a
bottle of milk containing cement owing to the necessity of taking
proceedings in the area where the milk was bottled. In this
case the milk might have been bottled at either of two dairies
from which the firm concerned supply milk into this District.
The Council had no means of determining at which dairy the milk
was actually bottled and could not therefore take proceedings.
An unusual complaint about foreign matter in homogenised
milk has been received. The foreign matter consisted of greyish
brown deposit, in globular formation, which was readily dispersed
when the milk was slightly agitated, but settled out again
later. Two pint bottles were sent to the Public Analyst and
his report states that the foreign matter consisted of pollen
grains and vegetable debris, adding that although harmless the
foreign matter should not have been present. This complaint is
the first of its kind which has ever been received in the Department
and consequently I have made wide enquiries about it. It
is a condition known as sedimentation and occurs only with
homogenised milk. Any treatment other than homogenisation
would leave the foreign matter widely dispersed in suspension
or enmeshed in the cream; in either case it could not be seen.
The process of homogenisation however results in its forming a
smudgy dirty deposit at the bottom of the bottle which is repellent
to consumers. There is no question of the homogenisation
process adding anything to the milk which was not already there.
When it first occurred, sedimentation was recognised by the
dairy industry as one of the serious and more troublesome defects
of homogenised milk; it was however overcome by the use
of the process known as clarification which is now common
practise in all large dairies, some using this process only in
conjunction with homogenisation and others using it for all
heat treated milk. The dairy concerned in this case is not a
national concern but operates mainly in West Middlesex and
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