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The last two years have witnessed what may justly be described as a revolutionary change in the packaging and marketing of goods, of which pre‐packed food constitutes a substantial part, but as far as public reaction goes, it has largely been a silent witness. There has been none of the outcry such as accompanied metrication, sufficient to call a halt to the process, and especially to the introduction of the decimal currency, of which most shoppers are convinced they were misled, “conned”. Every effort to make the changeover as smooth as possible was made; included was the setting up within the Department of Trade of a National Metrological Co‐ordinating Unit charged with co‐ordinating the work of 91 local weights and measures authorities in Great Britain in enforcing the new law, the Weights and Measures Act, 1979. This Act replaced the net or minimum system of the old law, the traditional system, re‐enacted in the Weights and Measures Act, 1963 with the average system, implementing EEC Directives and bringing weights and measures into line with Member‐states of the European Community.

The pattern of food prosecutions in more recent times has remained relatively unchanged. Most have been taken under Section 2, Food and Drugs Act, 1955, even for foods which have obviously been unfit for human consumption. The Section because of its wider application has distinct procedural advantages. A few local authorities routinely use Section 8 successfully; it probably depends upon a more liberal interpretation and understanding by local justices. The five‐year study of food prosecutions, (BFJ 1971, 73, 39), separated them into a number of well‐defined groups and showed that those for the presence of foreign material were the majority and remained fairly constant throughout the period; mouldy foods increased during the five years and then remained steady as the second largest single group. The foods most commonly affected and the foreign matter commonly present could be seen; neither changed much during the period of the survey.

More than half a century ago, glucose was “making the headlines” in connection with its use in brewing; it was conferring on beers derived from it properties not anticipated by the brewers and certainly not appreciated by the unfortunate consumers. Arsenic present in the sulphuric acid used in the hydrolysis of starch being converted into glucose passed through into the final product and there was a very unpleasant epidemic of arsenical poisoning, particularly in the Manchester area. There were many repercussions, lasting right up to the present time. One of our early recollections was of long rows of Gutzeit bottles emitting the rather unpleasant odour produced by the action of hydrochloric acid and granulated zinc on beers and ales, although, if memory can be relied upon, we were never successful in finding any significant amounts of arsenic.

AB Product warranties, in general, have not been employed by marketers as an important strategic tool, yet the business in extended warranties, service contracts, and maintenance agreements appears to be booming. But why? This article examines current practices, discusses critical issues raised in prior studies and the authors' recent research, and presents suggestions for the marketing of service and maintenance agreements. There is evidence to suggest that the long‐term market potential of many current offerings may be limited; however, careful consideration in defining the prime target markets and designing new types of agreements can help ensure success. The purpose of this article is threefold: first, to offer a brief review of current practices, which profiles the diversity of offerings and corporate philosophies; second, to discuss critical issues raised in prior studies and in our research; and finally, to present suggestions for the marketing of such offerings.

THE Institution of Chemical Engineers library has taken a bold step and is now marketing itself to non‐members as ‘The Information Centre for Chemical Technology’. The cost of a subscription is a modest £30 per year. This allows the corporate or personal subscriber 12 hours' use of the service. A record of all enquiries is kept, with answers given and time taken, so that a check can be made of use—and of the time remaining. For time used over and above the subscription period a charge of £3 per hour is made. These rates do not by any means represent the full cost of the service, since the institution is not a profit making organisation. The income will help develop and expand the library service to meet the proven need for technical information. Much credit is due to the librarian, in taking this commercial initiative inside an academic body. I hope the income derived will buy lots of books and even perhaps one day more staff. The centre is offering its first publication for sale, a thesaurus of 650 chemical engineering keywords with an associated 2,000 lead‐in words. Price £10. In preparation is a list of chemical engineering consultants. Details from 15 Belgrave Square, London SW1X 8PT. A booklet on the service is available.

The lengthy review of the Food Standards Committee of this, agreed by all public analysts and enforcement officers, as the most complicated and difficult of food groups subject to detailed legislative control, is at last complete and the Committee's findings set out in their Report. When in 1975 they were requested to investigate the workings of the legislation, the problems of control were already apparent and getting worse. The triology of Regulations of 1967 seemed comprehensive at the time, perhaps as we ventured to suggest a little too comprehensive for a rational system of control for arguments on meat contents of different products, descriptions and interpretation generally quickly appeared. The system, for all its detail, provided too many loopholes through which manufacturers drove the proverbial “carriage and pair”. As meat products have increased in range and the constantly rising price of meat, the “major ingredient”, the number of samples taken for analysis has risen and now usually constitutes about one‐quarter of the total for the year, with sausages, prepared meats (pies, pasties), and most recently, minced meat predominating. Just as serial sampling and analysis of sausages before the 1967 Regulations were pleaded in courts to establish usage in the matter of meat content, so with minced meat the same methods are being used to establish a maximum fat content usage. What concerns food law enforcement agencies is that despite the years that the standards imposed by the 1967 Regulations have been in force, the number of infringements show no sign of reduction. This should not really surprise us; there are even longer periods of failures to comply; eg., in the use of preservatives which have been controlled since 1925! What a number of public analysts have christened the “beefburger saga” took its rise post‐1967 and shows every indication of continuing into the distant future. Manufacturers appear to be trying numerous ploys to reduce the content below the Regulation 80% mainly by giving their products new names. Each year, public analysts report a flux of new names and ingenious defences; eg, “caterburgers” and similar concocted nomenclature, and the defence that because the name does not incorporate a meat, it is outside the statutory standard.

Since 1910, when John Dewey first introduced the five‐stage decision process, it has been a widely accepted concept and still serves as the central pillar of a popular consumer behavior model. These stages are Problem Recognition, Information Search, Alternative Evaluation, Choice, and Outcomes. The importance of these stages is attested to by the considerable attention devoted to most of them in numerous textbooks and journal articles. Such attention, however, has not come to the Problem Recognition stage. While some texts provide hypothetical descriptions of this “trigger” of the decision process, theoretical discussion and empirical support are surprisingly lacking. Journal literature fares even worse, with articles on the topic almost non‐existent. Lack of information on the topic is even more ironic when one considers that a purchase cannot occur unless a problem is recognized! The purpose of this article is to provide a detailed explanation of the Problem Recognition process. The results of the few empirical studies that have been done will be examined. In addition, a proposed model of the Problem Recognition process is presented. The implications of this material will be discussed as it relates to marketing.

Since the widespread finding by public analysts of penicillin in milk as the result of the treatment of bovine mastitis, it could only be a matter of time before there were prosecutions under Sect. 2, Food and Drugs Act, 1955. In this issue we report a successful case at Leeds, in which the defendant was convicted and fined. In our July issue (p. 98) we also reported a case brought by the Milk Marketing Board, where the defendant was given an absolute discharge, but although this was the first reported case in England and Wales, the complaint was laid earlier at Leeds, so the distinction of being the first food and drugs authority in the country to test the decision of whether or not penicillin traces in milk constitutes an offence rests with Leeds. The amount present—0.06 I.U. per ml.—was much lower than analysts have often reported, but on medical grounds, the possibility of hypersensitivity reactions and the development of antibiotic‐resistant types of organisms, comparison of amounts present in samples is a refinement not particularly relevant. Another important point about the prosecution at Leeds is that the authority was prepared to prove toxicity and to fight the case on these grounds, with expert witnesses lined up for the purpose. A plea of not guilty obviated the necessity of this. The defence naively suggested that the choice was either penicillin traces or the pathological products of mastitis in the milk, but in truth, it is neither. A purchaser expects genuine milk, pure and of the quality demanded

The brief announcement that the Government had accepted that there should be regulations on open date marking of food, to come into effect in 1975, will come as no surprise. It is a timely reminder of what public pressure can achieve these days; how sustained advocacy and publicity by interested sectors of society—magistrates, local authorities, public health workers, consumer groups—can secure legislative changes which, in this case, run counter to trade opinions and the recommendation originally made by the Food Standards Committee that such a proposal was not practical and the existing law was an adequate protection. This was stated in the FSC Report on Food Labelling of 1964, although there was no indication of the evidence reviewed or that the subject had been considered very deeply; it was, after all, only a small fraction of the problem of food labelling control. It was also stated in this Report that in certain cases, date‐stamping of food could give to purchasers a false sense of security, “not justified by the conditions under which the food has been kept since manufacture”.