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satisfy the provisional grading recommended by the Ministry of Health, it is essential
that the machine is cleaned and sterilised at least once per day. As soon as a retailer
accepts that there is no short cut to cleanliness, his product will be satisfactory.
Although representations have been made in the past to the Minister of Health, urging
a statutory bacteriological standard of cleanliness for ice-cream, he has made it clear
that no available bacteriological test is precise enough to be made statutory. The
Minister recommends that Local Authorities should continue to look to the methylene
blue test for provisional measurement of the bacteriological cleanliness of ice-cream.
Should the demand for soft ice-cream increase, however, it is likely that further
representations must be made for a legal bacteriological standard. It must be strange
indeed for the general consumer to understand why it is a legal contravention when icecream
contains only 4½% fat instead of 5% fat, but not when ice-cream fails the methylene
blue test.
FOOD - INSPECTION AND SAMPLING
Complaints of members of the public regarding unsound and/or adulterated foodstuffs
purchased by them were fully investigated and 16 cases were reported to the Public
Health Committee during the year. The foodstuffs implicated were winkles in a sour
condition, mould on cake (2), water in milk, dirty milk bottle, maggots in sweets,
feather in minced chicken, mouse dropping in bread, cotton wool in cheesecake, fly in
cheese, safety-pin in cake, dirt in bread roll, mould in steak pie, fly on sweets,
bone fragment in marmalade, and dirt on cheese. The decisions of the Public Health
Committee in relation to these food contraventions were:- prosecutions 3, warning letter
13. The results of the three prosecutions are given in the statistical section of the
Report.
The fact that in each of these three cases the complainants were asked, and consented,
to attend court to give evidence in support of the Council's case, indicates a
genuine desire on the part of the public to bring such incidents into the open rather
than to ignore them, although the penalties imposed must often come as an anti-climax to
them.
A total of 155 samples of food and drugs were taken by the Public Health inspectorate
for submission to the public analyst for chemical examination and 74 bacteriological
samples were submitted to the public health laboratories. By selective sampling it has
been the aim of the department to cover as wide a variety of foodstuffs as possible
and to include new and little-known products. In addition to sampling from retail food
premises, the department has given close attention to the sale of food from automatic
vending machines, and the variety of samples thus obtained, including milk, orange
drink, flavoured milk, biscuits, sandwiches, soup, hot chocolate, black and white
coffee, and ice-cream, gives an indication of the recent increase in number and
complexity of these machines. Bacteriological sampling of ice-cream was carried out
during the year, particularly in the summer months, when the demand for this commodity
is at its highest, and when attention to hygiene is, due to increased pressure of trade,
likely to be relaxed. Sampling of soft ice-cream from newly-installed machines in retail
premises in the Borough was given particular attention to ensure that machine operators
were practising regular plant cleaning and sterilisation.
Of the chemical samples taken during the year, seven adverse reports were received
and considered by the Public Health Committee, concerning fried fish (2), sausage meat,
tonic drink, apples, casserole steak and crisp bread. Legal proceedings were instituted
in one case, concerning the sale of fish described as "fried haddock" at a fried fish
(20)