[Report 1957] / Medical Officer of Health, Brackley R.D.C.

  • Brackley (England). Rural District Council.
Date:
1957
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1957] / Medical Officer of Health, Brackley R.D.C. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    33/48 (page 31)
    INSPECTION AND SUPERVISION OF FOODS. Food Premises Generally. As in previous years a large proportion of the time of the Department has been spent in visiting food shops. That it is time well spent is reflected in the fact that no case of food poisoning occurred during the year in this district. Also that generally the standard of the shops is shewing a steady but marked improvement. Adequate facilities for the wash- ing of hands is available at nearly all shops. The majority of food places are now provided with a refrigerator so essen- tial in the preservation of perishable foods and also affording protection against fly contamination. Bad habits such as smoking in food shops and the licking of fingers, or blowing in bags by persons engaged in the food trade is still occa- sionally met with. Unclean overalls or smocks are also ob- served all too frequently. For the Health Inspectors to have to draw attention to such contraventions of the Food Hygiene Regulations is likely to cause an embarrassing situation be- tween the Food Handlers concerned and the Inspectors, and should not be necessary if the persons employed in the food trade are of the right type and really interested in their job. Unclean habits cannot be tolerated however, and failure to respond to tactful persuasive efforts should result in the per- sons offending being dealt with by the legal powers available. Ice Cream. With the co-operation of the Vendors, all ice cream sold in the area is pre-wrapped. There are 31 premises selling this commodity as against 32 the previous year. All premises are inspected prior to registration. A total of 35 samples of ice cream were taken and arising therefrom 28 were placed in Grade 1 and 3 in Grade 2, both grades being considered as satisfactory. The two Grade 3 samples were unsatis- factory and 2 “follow up” samples taken from these sources were found to be satisfactory. Owing to the numerous factors governing the hygienic quality of ice cream it is un- wise to pay too much attention to the bacteriological results on a single sample. Judgement should be based rather on a series of samples.