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were notified during the year. Many of these were of a trivial
nature and commonsense advice was given to employers and
employees. A more serious type of accident can arise from the
failure to install guards on machines such as those used for meat
slicing and where necessary these have been required.
Food and Food Hygiene
The protection of the Borough's food supply has continued
to form an important part of the Inspectors work. The district has
the widest range of food premises possible. In the Southern part
are farms where pigs and poultry are bred and where milk is
produced. In this connection frequent samples were taken to
exercise proper control and particularly to detect the presence
of Brucellosis in dairy herds. In fact, none was confirmed.
In the second stage of food protection the Borough has a milk
bottling establishment and a slaughterhouse. Although the latter
is small, slaughter goes on for six days a week and an inspector
has to be constantly available as all meat must be inspected and
stamped before it can be released for human consumption. This
involved the inspection of 8,697 carcases during the year. Further
down the scale the district has its quota of food factories, some of
national importance, depots, shops, cafes and canteens.
These premises, some 2,038 in all must be inspected and the
staff there guided along the recognised practices of food hygiene.
A failure at any stage in the progression from farm to home could
have serious consequences.
That such possibilities exist is indicated by the increased
number of complaints concerning food which is out of condition
or which was found to contain abnormalities. Most of these are
indications that a fault has occurred somewhere along the line.
There were 86 complaints and these resulted in proceedings being
instituted in 27 cases, all but two being successful. In other
instances 42 warning letters were sent to those responsible.
Of the prosecutions instituted 13 referred to bread and flour
confectionery some of which were mouldy. Foreign bodies varied
from oily residues from bakehouse machinery (usually thought to
be rodent droppings) to parasite worms in fish. Three related to
the sale of milk from dirty bottles and three to mouldy meat pies.
The latter are particularly reprehensible as they may indicate a
dangerous condition in the meat filling. Almost invariably they
result from negligence on the part of the vendor. Articles which
should have been sold within two days of receipt are still on sale
two weeks after. This situation arises from the inefficiency of
staff generally and in particular to the failure to rotate stock which,
under modern vending methods, calls for meticulous supervision..