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Foreign Bodies
The baking industry was the biggest source of complaints in this field, bread and confectionery
being involved in 48 per cent of the cases. Foreign bodies included wasps, insects, stale dough,
lubricating oil, paint and flour bag labels.
Dirty milk bottles provided another source of complaint and it is one that will be with us until
the milk bottle is replaced by the non-returnable container. At present the detection of contaminated
bottles depends on visual inspection. The human element is bound to result in some dirty
bottles escaping detection. The dairy companies are all very much alive to this problem and many
offer rewards to their delivery men for spotting and returning offending bottles and also ensure that
building sites (areas where bottles are particularly prone to misuse) are only supplied with nonreturnable
containers.
Other complaints involved Nematodes in fish, insects and blood clots in canned meat and a
spider in canned rice. Sweets described as "Seaside Travel" were the subject of a complaint that,
when sucked by a young boy, a length of bristle was found coiled up in one of the centres. For
the unintentional touch of realism which this piece of flotsam gave, the producer was fined £10 and
£8 8s. costs.
Unsound Food
Bread and confectionery, together with meat pies and cooked meats, constituted nearly 50 per
cent of the complaints in this category, the majority of which were found to arise through insufficient
care in stock rotation. The need for the adoption of an effective system of stock coding by retailers
in order to ensure correct rotation is emphasised by inspectors during their routine visits. The
major pie manufacturers all have codes of practice which are made available to the trade dealing
with the handling of their products. It is therefore very disconcerting when shop-keepers are found
to pay no attention whatever to this elementary safeguard.
In one instance confectionery in a mouldy condition was found to have been supplied to a
retailer, and court proceedings resulted in a £20 fine and £8 8s. costs being imposed on the
wholesaler.
Food Poisoning
There were two major food poisoning incidents during the year, one involving 120 cases who
had a pre-arranged lunch at a restaurant, and the other, involving 17 cases, in which suspicion was
directed towards a factory canteen.
IMPORTED FOOD INSPECTION (London Airport)
Five hundred and sixty-four inspections were made under the Public Health (Imported Food)
Regulations 1937-48. The object of the Regulations is to ensure that food imported for sale is fit
for human consumption, and further require that meat and meat products imported for sale for
human consumption shall not be imported without an Official Certificate. This is recognised by the
Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food as showing (a) that the meat to which the Certificate
relates or the meat from which the meat product to which it relates was prepared, was derived from
animals inspected ante and post-mortem and passed in accordance with criteria satisfactory to the
Minister; and (b) that all necessary precautions for the prevention of danger to public health were
taken in the dressing or preparing and packing of the meat or meat product.
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