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OUTWORKING IN THE PICKLED ONION INDUSTRY. Review of the Food Hygiene
(Amendment) Regulations, 1957 (Ministry of Health Circular 2/60, dated 25th
January, 1960).
In this Circular, the Minister of Health informed local authorities that
jointly with the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, he had reviewed
the arrangements introduced by the Food Hygiene (Amendment) Regulations, 1957,
in relation to outworking in the shrimp and pickled onion industry. The
Circular states ".the use of outworkers in the pickled onion industry is very
localised. The manufacturers themselves are anxious, on grounds of economy
as well as of hygiene, to bring the practice to an end at the earliest opportunity,
and they expect that peeling machines, which several firms have been
trying experimentally, may be available on a commercial scale within two years.
In the circumstances the Ministers have decided that they should proceed on the
basis that the cessation of outworking can be expected within two years' time
without causing hardship or dislocation to the industry, but that they should
not at the present time prescribe in regulations a date within that period from
which outworking in this industry must be brought to an end„ "
FOOD HYGIENE CODES OF PRACTICE. Two Codes of Practice, one relating to The
Hygienic Transport and Handling of Fish, and the other relating to Hygiene in
the Retail Fish Trade, were issued by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of
Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
SECTION 16 (Registration of premises - manufacture and sale of ice-cream and of
sausages, etc,) This section provides that no premises shall be used for the
sale, or the manufacture for the purpose of sale, of ice-cream, or the storage
of ice-cream intended for sale, or the preparation or manufacture of sausages
or potted, pressed, pickled or preserved food intended for sale unless they are
registered under this section for that purpose by the local authority.
(a) ICE CREAM New applications to the number of twenty-three for the sale of
ice-cream were approved; three applications were refused, following the
Council's practice not to register for this purpose premises in which
greengrocery and/or paraffin are sold. At the end of the year the premises of
426 retailers and ten manufacturers were registered The 93 samples of
ice cream submitted to the Public Health Laboratory Service for Methylene Blue
Test, were reported on as follows:-
Grade 1 - 51
Grade 2-30
Grade 3 - 6
Grade 4 - 6
(b) PREPARATION OR MANUFACTURE OF SAUSAGES OR POTTED, PRESSED, PICKLED OR
PRESERVED FOOD INTENDED FOR SALE, There were three new applications, one for
the cooking of hams and two in respect of food vending machines in the foyers
of cinemas, and at the end of the year, the following 169 premises were
registered:-
Preservation of meat and manufacture of sausages 121
Fish curing 19
Manufacture of meat pies and jellied eels 5
Manufacture of canned soups 1
Fish frying 16
Onion peeling 5
Food Vending machines 2
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