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Preserved and Pickled Foods
Those premises where sausages or preserved or pickled foods are
prepared or manufactured have to be registered under the Food and
Drugs Act 1938 by this Authority. There were 140 such premises at the
end of the year, an increase of twelve on the previous year.
All the premises are regularly inspected. Where unsatisfactory
conditions or other irregularities were found, the occupier's attention was
called to them and were promptly attended to.
Registration of Hawkers
It is a requirement of the Middlesex County Council Act, 1950 that
any person not being a shop-keeper who retails from a cart, barrow,
basket or other receptacle, shall be registered with the local authority
and that the storage premises used by him also shall be registered. The
number registered as trading in the district at the end of the year was
sixty-six, an increase of two during the year. Of these twenty-six were
trading from storage premises in Harrow, and forty from premises
outside the district. Before registering those premises where the storage
is outside this district, enquiries of the local authority concerned are made.
(D) ADULTERATION OF FOOD
The following particulars have been taken from the Annual Report
of the Chief Officer of the Public Control Department of the County
Council for the year 1959/60.
Of the 1,504 samples submitted for analysis by the Public Analyst,
159 were found to be incorrect This was a sharp rise on the figure of the
previous year and came about for two reasons. One was that an agreed
standard for the meat content of luncheon and similar meats by the trade
has led to a careful weeding-out of sub-standard products. The other is
the increase in the use of preservatives in foods to which such addition
is prohibited, leading to a drive to stamp out this practice.
In spite of the enormous amount of milk consigned into the county
by farmers, the incidence of sub-standard milk was negligible. Only one
consignment was found to be below the presumptive standard of solidsnot-fat
; in this the presence of added water was not confirmed. The
standard of milk sold to the general public continues to be satisfactory,
and except for certain samples of milk obtained in refreshment establishments,
gave no cause for complaint. The average percentage of milk fat
was 3.61 and of solids-not-fat 8.90; the figures for the presumptive
standard for genuine milk are 3.5 and 8.5. The position in regard to hot
milk sold for consumption in refreshment houses is that in many instances
water was added to warm the milk.
A number of samples of bread were unsatisfactory because of mould
occurring, especially in wrapped bread when the bread had been wrapped
while warm. A high proportion of cakes was unsatisfactory ; this was
largely because articles were described as "cream" whereas in fact they
had been filled with imitatioi crean