1966 — Page 22

Page 22 of 279

22

HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

sale, it has not been possible to obtain sufficient definite evidence for positive action to be taken against illegal processing or bottling.

A full survey of places keeping bees and producing honey was carried out by the department late in 1962, following which, in January 1963, each identified owner was sent an official letter pointing out that he should apply for a food factory licence; the results of these efforts revealed that this type of business is not carried out on any permanent basis in the urban areas—since it is seasonal, of short duration, and has no fixed premises, the location of the hives being changed a number of times each year according to the areas best suited at different times for the bees to feed.

Sampling of honey from retail shops is, however, carried out. This is done to check quality and detect adulteration of honey with cane sugar, under the Food and Drugs (Composition and Labelling) Regulations rather than to examine it for other contamination.

The only legal standard for honey is that it should contain not more than 5% sucrose.

During the past 12 months, 18 samples of honey on sale in the urban area were analysed in this way and all except one were reported as satisfactory.

DR. BELL: Mr. Chairman, may I clarify why I asked this question in the first place? A member of the medical profession asked me whether there was any check made on honey, because he had had a number of patients suffering from severe gastro-enteritis who all put the origin of their illness down to eating honey. May I ask, therefore, whether it would be possible to sample honey from the point of view of bacterial contamination.

DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF MEDICAL AND HEALTH SERVICES: Mr. Chairman, I do not think this is possible as a routine sampling procedure. In the instance that Dr. BELL quotes, a sample of honey could have been taken from the shops where these people had purchased it—that is the object of sampling when it is done for a specific purpose. I do not suppose the health staff were notified in any way of this occurrence. Had they been, samples would have been taken by health officers from shops from which this honey was purchased. But as a routine measure, one cannot do sampling, especially for bacteriological contamination of these sort of foods—pots of jam and marmalade, all these sort of foods—all sorts of things would have to be done continually. We have enough to do, as you probably realize, with milk, water, ice-cream, and

HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

23

so on, which are done as a routine. So I am afraid the answer to Dr. BELL's question is "no".

DR. BELL: Mr. Chairman, may I say I am not quite satisfied with that answer, because there are certain foodstuffs which are known to be more easily contaminated than others. Dr. COOMBES has run through several in his list just now—he mentions jam and things of that sort. But most of them have been in sealed containers and are probably produced in conditions where there is a food factory licence in effect, either in the Colony or abroad, where most of them come from. Now what I am saying is it would seem to me, Mr. Chairman, that periodic sampling of honey, which is a product which is a good medium for bacteria to grow in, would be a good idea, and I would request whether this could be referred to the Food and Food Premises Select Committee for further discussion.

MR. MARDEN: Mr. Chairman, perhaps the Food and Food Premises Select Committee could use as their reference book on this particular subject, "Winnie the Pooh". (Laughter).

DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF MEDICAL AND HEALTH SERVICES: Certainly, Mr. Chairman, I think we should do that. We are prepared at any time to take a sample of honey for bacteriological contamination. I can't agree quite with Dr. BELL that it is a good medium; its osmotic pressure is alleged to be so high that bacteria do not like it. (Laughter).

MR. SALES: Sir, may I suggest that we leave all medical matters to the new Chairman of the Food and Food Premises Select Committee, our friend the Honourable Mr. Wilfred WONG? (Laughter).

(12) DR. A. M. S. BELL asked the following question:

Would the Chairman please state—

(a) what is the average length of time required between the receipt of an application for a restaurant or cafe licence and the issue of that licence?

(b) whether any senior staff member calls in the files of all licence applications for review in all cases where no licence has been issued three months from the time of application?

THE DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF MEDICAL AND HEALTH SERVICES replied as follows:

I find that it is not possible to answer the first part of the question in any really satisfactory way. To give a general average length of time on these cases would mean very

Page 23 of 279