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Should a serious outbreak of food poisoning occur the publicity given is out of all
proportion to the public health significance, in actual fact this is a good thing. In recent
outbreaks of typhoid fever this has been traced to bad processing of the product overseas
and the bad handling in the shops in this country.
The consumer believes that the fitness of food is related to the age of that food, this
does apply in certain types of perishable foods, but again this depends on the storage and to
certain extent the method of production. The purchaser of food often agitates for the date of
production to be stamped on the food package. If this was done the purchaser would always
take the food with the most recent date. This difficulty may be overcome by stamping on the
food container "this food must be consumed by a certain date", instead of the actual date of
production. Another suggestion is that the food should be date stamped in a code that is
understood by the retailer and by the local authority.
With respect to the factory production of food there is little comment by the consumer,
he reserves his expressions "dirty" and "filthy" to the actual conditions he can see in the
shop. A number of surveys have been made in respect of the conditions of food handling in
shops and these have shown that these are very low. There have been improvements since
the coming into operation of Food Hygiene Regulations in the provisions of equipment for the
storing and preparation of food and for the personal cleanliness of the person serving the
food. There still remains the human element, this might include such things as sneezing
over food, licking of fingers, before picking up wrapping paper, handling of dogs and cats and
scratching hair. This may all be visible to the consumer. This may or may not apply where
food is prepacked in preparation rooms out of sight of the consumer, as better supervision
may be possible. It all depends on the personal standard of hygiene of the food handlers.
The raising of the standard of hygiene will take time. The public may be more ready
to complain when they see bad handling of food, but there is still a great need for more
frequent inspection of premises and advice from public health inspectors. Cleanliness of
shops is always considered important by the consumer, there are very few consumers who
will purchase food from dirty shops.
It is only education in food hygiene given to todays young people which will improve
the peoples standards of cleanliness. Courses of lectures in food hygiene were set up by one
of the public health associations, these were for food handlers, but they had to be discontinued
through lack of attendance.
The consumer has a right to be informed about the food he purchases, he may require
to know the source or origin of the food. Much of the present day food is prepacked and the
consumer has no way of examining the food before purchase. There are few guides to assist
the purchaser to judge the article of food, there may be no informed assistants available to
answer questions and if the product is new to the purchaser the only guide may be the label.
For a consumer a label has to give information about the product and its use, for the
manufacturer it has to sell the product. The demands made by either side can become excessive
and then conflict arises. The manufacturer would want to include on the label a picture
which would show the product to the best advantage, and by law the label may have to show
a list of the chemical names of all the ingredients. These two items may cover the whole of
the surface of the wrapper and give practically no information of value to the purchaser. The
consumer is often prepared to accept the terms "pure" and "fresh", these are very vague
and cannot be considered as satisfactory. With reference to tins of meat one housewife said
"this must be the best as the label states it has been passed by the Ministry of Agriculture",
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