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The purpose of this paper is to report a survey in random-selected supermarkets in Italy in order to identify the attitudes and perceptions of consumers toward milk and in particular toward donkey milk.

The analysis was conducted through Google Forms platform of docs.google interviews with a sample of 705 consumers who were given a questionnaire to collect information about their economic status and their attitudes toward milk and special milk consumption.

The results were analyzed in order to identify the socio-economic and behavioral characteristics of homogeneous groups of consumers. They consume milk mainly because it is not expensive and it is possible to easily buy it in the supermarket. They consume special milk mainly because of food allergies or intolerances. They would like to buy special milk at large-scale retail trade outlets; they underline difficulties in finding and purchasing it. They think that the price of special milk is very high.

The results showed that those who occasionally consume special milk choose it because it is more nourishing or for health reasons; there is also a significant association between the judgment on prices of special milk and the frequency of purchase. The estimation of a generalized linear model allowed to highlight that only age and the presence of health problems/intolerances are significant predictors of special milk consumption.

In every industry there are resources. Some are moving, others more fixed; some are technical, others social. People working with the resources, for example, as buyers or sellers, or users or producers, may not make much notice of them. A product sells. A facility functions. The business relationship in which we make our money has “always” been there. However, some times this picture of order is disturbed. A user having purchased a product for decades may “suddenly” say to the producer that s/he does not appreciate the product. And a producer having received an order of a product that s/he thought was well known, may find it impossible to sell it. Such disturbances may be ignored. Or they can be used as a platform for development. In this study we investigate the latter option, theoretically and through real world data. Concerning theory we draw on the industrial network approach. We see industrial actors as part of (industrial) networks. In their activities actors use and produce resources. Moreover, the actors interact − bilaterally and multilaterally. This leads to development of resources and networks. Through “thick” descriptions of two cases we illustrate and try to understand the interactive character of resource development and how actors do business on features of resources. The cases are about a certain type of resource, a product − goat milk. The main message to industrial actors is that they should pay attention to that products can be co-created. Successful co-creation of products, moreover, may require development also of business relationships and their connections (“networking”).

Three events of significance to this country took place in 1899 – the British Food Journal was launched, Australia retained the Ashes, and the Boer War hostilities commenced. If challenged on the order of their importance, cricketers and Empire‐builders may be excused their preference. However, looking at it purely from the standpoint of pro bono publico, the dispassionate observer must surely opt for the birth of a certain publication as being ultimately the most beneficial of the three.

In absence of breast milk, humanized mammalian milk may not be adequate as it could not confer considerable protection to the infants as those extended by breast milk. With the objective of enhancing the nutritional and therapeutic attributes of humanized mammalian milk considerable efforts have been exercised to mimic infant formulae to the health‐promoting benefits of breast milk with the inclusion of probiotics, oligosaccharides and proteins. The purpose of this paper is to address this issue.

In the present article an endeavour has been made to enlighten innovations in supplementary foods for infants in absence of human milk. Suitability of special humanized milk such as hypoallergenic formulae, neural formulae and gastrointestinal integrity formulae as a supplementary food for infants in absence of human milk is also justified.

Characterization of components of human milk and identification of nutritional needs of infants have resulted in formulation of special humanized milk such as hypoallergenic formulae for allergenic infants, neural formulae for normal physiological functions of infants and gastrointestinal integrity formulae for maintaining microbial balance in the intestine. Supplementation of infant formulae with sialic acid, long chain poly unsaturated fatty acids such as decosahexaenoic acid and arachidonic acid, probiotic cultures such as Bifidobacterium bifidum, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus GG and Lactobacillus casei and prebiotic such as galacto‐OS and fructo‐OS are recommended.

The paper emphasises that, with the characterization of components of human milk and identification of nutritional needs of infants, modification of infant formulae should be constantly carried.

The Minister of Health, after consideration of the representations made to him and after consultation with the Minister of Agriculture, has made the new Milk (Special Designations) Order, which will come into operation on June 1st next. The new Order has two main objects—to transfer from the Minister to local authorities the duty of granting licences to producers of certain graded milks and to improve and simplify the special designations of milk.

Over the years we have reported prosecutions where the defence has alleged, and with circumstantial support that the presence of a harmful foreign body in food was deliberate through the action of a single disgruntled employee or where the labour relations climate generally has been bad. It makes no difference to the manufacturer's responsibility—the offence is an absolute one—but occasionally courts have allowed it in mitigation. Sometimes, it has been the nature of the extraneous material, e.g. fragments of glass or metal, the like of which did not exist in the factory premises or plant. This may be taken as a symptom of the vandalism of the age, but more recently, two incidents have drawn attention to its dangers and provided a glimpse of the criminal mind which can inflict such injury on employers, and expose innocent consumers, of all ages, to possible harm.

Smedleys Ltd v. Breed effectively disposes of Section 3 (3), Food and Drugs Act, 1955 as a defence in law in what nowadays constitutes the commonest source of all food prosecutions, viz., foreign matter in food. Their Lord‐ships' judgment is indeed a brilliant exposition of the law on the subject, but the result of their dismissal of the appeal can only be seen, as one of their number stated, that local authorities and magistrates for all practical purposes can ignore the subsection, and from the numerous reports of legal proceedings, this is what they have been doing for many years. It was resurrected in a case, similar in circumstance to that in Smedleys, a couple of years ago, in respect of a snail in black currant jam, in which the snail and black currants were identical in size and appearance.

The Right Hon. Earl De La Warr, P.C., J.P., in his inaugural address to the Congress, expressed his appreciation at being elected President for the ensuing year. He continued : “ Your task, whether you be members or officers of local authorities or members of other professions, is to prevent sickness and disease, rather than to cure it, or, rather, I should put it more positively by saying that you give us the conditions which we need for living healthily. . . . As an agriculturist I cannot but notice your interest in both farming and veterinary problems. You have given time to them in your discussion programme and also in the arrangements that you have made for visiting neighbouring farms. Three years ago I set myself the task of having an all tuberculin tested estate and I am proud to tell you that three‐quarters of my tenants have already achieved that happy state of affairs. Perhaps you will allow me to mention one point here. The cleaning up of our dairy herds and of our milk supplies is of first‐rate importance in any scheme for improving the national health. I hope that in your travels round you will see something of the progress that has been made in clean milk production. The proportion of milk produced on T.T. farms is increasing; this is shown by the fact that the percentage was 18?4 in 1947, 22?2 in 1948 and 25?9 in 1949. It has risen by over 100 million gallons even during the last statistical year, and the first six months of this year look like giving us an almost equally large increase. The inspection of cowsheds has now become the responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture, but you can still help to encourage clean milk production by your influence on the distributive and consumer side. Not all consumers, by any means, realise the significance of designated milk. You could give them guidance. It is very important also that farmers and landowners should feel that you are their friends and that you consider their efforts to improve this milk to be worth while. If the impression was ever given that doctors and public health authorities rely so much on pasteurisation that it does not really matter very much what sort of milk is produced, great harm might be done. The decision to enter the T.T. scheme involves quite a considerable risk of cows failing in the test, and a considerable initial expenditure of both effort and money. Nobody is ever the worse off for a bit of encouragement, and if you feel able to give it, so much the better for us all. Certainly I for one have a possibly old‐fashioned feeling that, pasteurised or not, I should prefer my milk to start its life clean, all the more so in view of the fact that by no means every pasteurising plant is completely infallible and independent of the care with which human beings operate it. . . . I close by offering you the consolation of not being very much in the news, of not receiving the thanks or gratitude that is due to all the services that you administer, for the sound and simple reason that you are doing them too well to attract attention.”

Earliest localism was sited on a tree or hill or ford, crossroads or whenceways, where people assembled to talk, (Sax. witan), or trade, (Sax. staple), in eggs, fowl, fish or faggots. From such primitive beginnings many a great city has grown. Settlements and society brought changes; appointed headmen and officials, a cloak of legality, uplifted hands holding “men to witness”. Institutions tend to decay and many of these early forms passed away, but not the principle vital to the system. The parish an ecclesiastical institution, had no place until Saxons, originally heathens, became Christians and time came when Church, cottage and inn filled the lives of men, a state of localism in affairs which endured for centuries. The feudal system decayed and the vestry became the seat of local government. The novels of Thomas Hardy—and English literature boasts of no finer descriptions of life as it once was—depict this authority and the awe in which his smocked countrymen stood of “the vicar in his vestry”. The plague freed serfs and bondsmen, but events, such as the Poor Law of 1601, if anything, revived the parish as the organ of local government, but gradually secular and ecclesiastical aspects were divided and the great population explosion of the eighteenth century created necessity for subdivision of areas, which continued to serve the principle of localism however. The ballot box completed the eclipse of Church; it changed concepts of localism but not its importance in government.

The Corporation of the City of London are about to appoint a Public Analyst, and by advertisement have invited applications for the post. It is obviously desirable that the person appointed to this office should not only possess the usual professional qualifications, but that he should be a scientific man of high standing and of good repute, whose name would afford a guarantee of thoroughness and reliability in regard to the work entrusted to him, and whose opinion would carry weight and command respect. Far from being of a nature to attract a man of this stamp, the terms and conditions attaching to the office as set forth in the advertisement above referred to are such that no self‐respecting member of the analytical profession, and most certainly no leading member of it, could possibly accept them. It is simply pitiable that the Corporation of the City of London should offer terms, and make conditions in connection with them, which no scientific analyst could agree to without disgracing himself and degrading his profession. The offer of such terms, in fact, amounts to a gross insult to the whole body of members of that profession, and is excusable only—if excusable at all—on the score of utter ignorance as to the character of the work required to be done, and as to the nature of the qualifications and attainments of the scientific experts who are called upon to do it. In the analytical profession, as in every other profession, there are men who, under the pressure of necessity, are compelled to accept almost any remuneration that they can get, and several of these poorer, and therefore weaker, brethren will, of course, become candidates for the City appointment.