British Food Journal Volume 7 Issue 2 1905

Abstract

Referring to the question of the adulteration of brandy with silent spirit, the Standard recently observed that the question of obtaining, by legislation or otherwise, an improvement in the present system of public control over the purity of articles of food and drink has become one of great and even national importance. Many of the grosser kinds of adulteration, against which the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts were originally directed, are of far less frequent occurrence, but in their place has arisen a great variety of more subtle forms of adulteration, frequently very harmful, and always objectionable on account of the misrepresentation that the sophisticated article is the genuine product which the purchaser has asked for and has a right to expect. With adulteration of this kind the local authorities, whose business it is to enforce the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts, are often unable to deal satisfactorily, and this fact has been insisted upon by many scientific authorities who have interested themselves in the subject. The position of affairs with regard to spirits typifies the difficulty which constantly arises in connection with a large variety of articles of food and drink of both home and foreign manufacture. It is obvious that when cases relating to the additions of “preservative” chemicals to milk and butter, of glucose to marmalade, or the proportion of “esters” in a brandy, come before different magistrates, supported by a mass of conflicting evidence on both sides, the justices cannot be expected to come to consistent or satisfactory conclusions. Government policy in the matter seems so far to have been confined to appointing a series of committees or commissions, and afterwards doing nothing, or next to nothing, with their reports.

Citation

(1905), "British Food Journal Volume 7 Issue 2 1905", British Food Journal, Vol. 7 No. 2, pp. 23-44. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb010920