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36
of food hygiene are generally understood. The biggest fallacy is
perhaps to confuse the relative importance of knowledge of the subject
and equipment. Premises with a minimum of equipment but
conducted and managed with understanding of the hygiene problems
involved are far less of a worry than for more lavishly equipped
premises conducted on the basis that if you pay enough the situation
will keep itself satisfactory.
I hope that full advantage will be taken of the advice of my
Department when the Food Hygiene Regulations are being considered
by traders and that any advice which we offer to them will
be accepted. There can be few able genuinely to claim that they
have nothing to learn in this matter.
Food Premises.
The number of food premises in the district may be classified
as follows (where more than one trade is carried on at any premises,
then an entry is made in respect of each trade) :
Bakehouses 18
Butchers 64
Cafes 65
Confectioners (bread, cakes, etc,) 33
Confectioners (sweets, etc.) 104
Fish Shops 29
Grocers 164
Greengrocers 87
Ice Cream Dealers 250
Ice Cream Manufacturers 14
Shellfish.
During the year some 33 samples of various types of this
product were sent for examination. The vendors included both
shopkeepers and those selling from carts. The products included
cooked and shelled cockles, cooked shrimps, potted shrimps, cooked
prawns, peeled prawns, fresh mussels, Dutch bottled mussels,
bottled whelks, frozen peeled scampi, periwinkles and cooked periwinkles.
Approximately two-thirds of the samples taken were satisfactory,
the remainder being unsatisfactory in some—possibly minor—
degree. On the whole as might be expected the shopkeepers appeared
to provide a somewhat higher standard of article than the itinerant
vendor. It is very difficult to be precise on the implications of the
results and far too easy to generalise to the prejudice either of the
articles as a whole or to any particular type of vendor and I do not
therefore propose to deal precisely with the results relating to either
a particular type of shellfish or a particular type of vendor since I do
not think this would be warranted.
It should, however, be pointed out that shellfish are susceptible
to contamination both at source and possibly in transit and
in process of sale. That is a fact which is known to everyone dealing