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Butter and Margarine Act, 1907. [Jan., 



The Board have issued the following circular to Local 

 Authorities in Great Britain on the 

 Circular as to the subject of the Butter and Margarine Act, 

 Butter and Mar- 1907 : — 



garine Act, 1907. SlR? I2th December > 



I am directed by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries 

 to inform you that the Butter and Margarine Act, 1907, comes into operation on the 

 1st January, 1908, and to suggest that your Council should consider at an early date 

 the steps which should be taken in order to carry out the provisions of the Act in their 

 district. 



Some of the principal provisions of the Act are intended by means of regulation 

 and inspection of the re-working of butter to prevent its adulteration with milk or 

 water, or with fats other than butter fat. To give full effect to these provisions your 

 Local Authority should take all practicable steps to ensure that after 1st January, 

 1908, no premises in their district shall be used for the blending or re- working of 

 butter unless the premises have been registered with them in accordance with section I 

 of the Act. 



If your Local Authority have any reason to suppose that butter is being blended or 

 re-worked in any unregistered premises, I am to ask that they will cause the matter to 

 be reported to the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, so that the Board may 

 authorise one of their officers, under section 2 (3) of the Act, to enter and inspect the 

 premises. 



The Act provides that premises which form part of or communicate, otherwise 

 than by a public street or road, with premises where margarine, margarine cheese, or 

 mixtures of butter with milk or cream are manufactured or dealt in wholesale, shall 

 not be used as a butter factory, and it will be the duty of Local Authorities to refuse to 

 register such premises as butter factories and to take steps to prevent the use of such 

 premises for the blending or re-working of butter. But if any such premises were 

 being used as a butter factory on 1st January, 1907, and then formed part of or com- 

 municated with premises registered under the Acts then in force, the application for 

 registration should be forwarded to the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries so that they 

 may consider whether they should exercise in favour of the applicant the power con- 

 ferred on them by the proviso to section 1 (3) of the Act. 



Your Local Authority have power, under section 2 (2), specially to authorise an 

 officer who is empowered to procure samples under these Acts to enter any registered 

 butter factory, and this power may be found useful in enforcing the new Act, and 

 particularly section 3 of it which, in effect, prohibits adulterants in butter factories, 

 and section 4(1) which limits the amount of water in factory butter to 16 per cent. 



If in the course of sampling under the Food and Drugs Acts the officers of your 

 Local Authority find that butter is being retailed in their district which contains more 

 than 16 per cent, of water and which appears to have come from a butter factory out- 

 side their district, or to have been imported from abroad, the Board would be obliged 

 if you would cause the circumstances to be reported to them. 



Section 8 regulates the use of names in connection with margarine on wrappers, 

 packages, labels, advertisements, and invoices. Every such name must include the 

 word " Margarine " printed in the same colour and in type as large as, or larger than, 

 the rest of the name, and the Local Authority should instruct their officers to report 

 to them all cases in which this provision is not complied with. The section also 

 requires that the name shall be approved by the Board, but it appears to the Board 

 that the enforcement of this further provision can for the present more conveniently be 

 carried out by their own officers. If, however, your Local Authority so request, the 

 Board will forward to you lists of the names which have been approved by them. 



The manufacture and importation of margarine containing more than 16 per cent, 

 of water is prohibited by section 4(1) and 5 (i) (f) of the Act. In any case in which 



