Food and Drugs (Adulteration) Act 1928
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Citation | 1928 c. 31 |
Food and Drugs (Adulteration) Act, 1928
(18 & 19 Geo. 5.) CHAPTER 31.
An Act to consolidate the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts.
[3rd August 1928]
Be it enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—
Part I.
General Provisions.
1 Restrictions on mixing food and drugs with other ingredients.
(1) No person shall mix, colour, stain, or powder, or order or permit any other person to mix, colour, stain or powder—
(a ) any article of food with any ingredient or material so as to render the article injurious to health;
(b ) any drug with any ingredient or material so as to affect injuriously the quality or potency of the drug;
with the intent that the article of food or drug may be sold in that state.
(2) No person shall sell any article of food or drug so mixed, coloured, stained or powdered as aforesaid.
(3) If any person contravenes any of the provisions of this section, he shall be guilty of an offence and shall—
(a ) in the case of a first offence in relation to an article of food, or a drug, be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds; and
(b ) in the case of any offence in relation to an article of food after conviction for a first offence in relation to an article of food, or in the case of any offence in relation to a drug after conviction for a first offence in relation to a drug, be liable on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months:
Provided that a person shall not be liable to be convicted under this section in respect of the sale of any article of food or of any drug if he shows to the satisfaction of the court before whom he is charged that he did not know, and could not with reasonable diligence have ascertained, that the article of food or drug sold by him was so mixed, coloured, stained or powdered as aforesaid.
(4) Where any regulations made under the Public Health (Regulations as to Food) Act, 1907 (as amended by any subsequent enactment), and the enactments mentioned in that Act, prohibit or restrict the addition of any preservative or other ingredient or material to an article of food, the addition of any such ingredient or material—
(a ) if made in contravention of the regulations, shall for the purposes of this Part of this Act be deemed to render the article injurious to health;
(b ) if made to an amount not exceeding the limit (if any) specified by the regulations, shall not for the purposes of this Part of this Act be deemed to render the article injurious to health.
2 Prohibition against sale of articles of food and drugs not of the nature, substance or quality demanded.
(1) No person shall sell to the prejudice of the purchaser any article of food or any drug which is not of the nature, or not of the substance, or not of the quality, of the article demanded by the purchaser.
(2) If any person contravenes the provisions of this section, he shall be guilty of an offence:
Provided that an offence under this section shall not be deemed to have been committed—
(a ) where any ingredient or material not injurious to health has been added to the article of food or drug because it is required for the production or preparation thereof as an article of commerce in a state fit for carriage or consumption, and not fraudulently to increase the bulk, weight, or measure of the article of food or drug, or to conceal the inferior quality thereof;
(b ) where the food or drug is the subject of a patent in force, and is supplied in the state required by the specification of the patent, or is a proprietary medicine;
(c ) where the food or drug is unavoidably mixed with some extraneous matter in the process of collection or preparation;
(d ) where the article being whisky, brandy, rum or gin, is not adulterated otherwise than by the admixture of water, and it is proved that such admixture has not reduced the spirit more than thirty-five degrees under proof.
(3) In any prosecution under this section it shall be no defence to allege that the purchaser, having bought only for analysis, is not prejudiced.
(4) Where any regulations made under the Public Health (Regulations as to Food) Act, 1907 (as amended by any subsequent enactment), and the enactments mentioned in that Act, prescribe the composition of any article of food intended for sale, or prohibit or restrict the addition of any preservative or other ingredient or material to any such article, the purchaser of such article shall, unless the contrary is proved, be deemed for the purposes of this section to have demanded an article complying with the provisions of the regulations as regards the presence or amount of any constituent ingredient or material specified in the regulations.
3 Provision as to sale of compounds.
3. If any person sells any compound article of food, or any compounded drug, which is not composed of ingredients in accordance with the demand of the purchaser, he shall be guilty of an offence.
4 Protection from liability where article properly labelled.
(1) No person shall be guilty of any such offence as aforesaid in respect of the sale of an article of food or a drug mixed with any ingredient or material not injurious to health, and not intended fraudulently to increase its bulk, weight, or measure, or to conceal its inferior quality, if at the time of delivering the article of food or drug he supplies to the person receiving it a notice, by a label distinctly and legibly written or printed on or with the article or drug, to the effect that it is mixed.
(2) For the purposes of this section, a label shall not be deemed to be distinctly and legibly written or printed if the notice of mixture given by the label is obscured by other matter on the label: but nothing in this subsection shall hinder or affect the use of any registered trade mark, or of any label which had been continuously in use for at least seven years before the first day of January nineteen hundred.
(3) The Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks shall not register any trade mark purporting to describe a mixture unless it complies with the requirements of this section.
5 Offences in relation to the abstraction from articles of food of parts thereof.
5. If any person abstracts from any article of food any part of it so as to affect injuriously its nature, substance or quality, with the intent that it may be sold in its altered state without notice, or if any person sells any article so altered without making disclosure of the alteration, he shall be guilty of an offence.
Part II.
Provisions with respect to Special Articles.
6 Conditions to be observed in dealings in margarine, margarine-cheese, and milk-blended butter.
(1) Margarine, margarine-cheese and milk-blended butter, whenever sold or forwarded by any public conveyance shall be sold or consigned as margarine or margarine-cheese, or in the case of milk-blended butter under such name or names as may be approved by the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries.
(2) It shall not be lawful to manufacture, sell or expose for sale any margarine the fat of which contains more than ten per cent. of fat derived from milk.
(3) Every person dealing in margarine, whether wholesale or retail, and whether as manufacturer, importer, consignor, consignee, commission agent or otherwise, shall conform to such of the following regulations as may be applicable:—
(a ) Every package containing margarine, whether open or closed, shall have the word ‘Margarine’ branded or durably marked on the top, bottom, and sides thereof, in printed capital letters not less than three-quarters of an inch square, the brand or mark being on the package itself and not solely on a label ticket or other thing attached thereto;
(b ) There shall be attached to every parcel of margarine exposed for sale by retail, in such manner as to be clearly visible to the purchaser, a label marked ‘Margarine’ in printed capital letters not less than one and a half inches square;
(c ) Margarine when sold by retail, save in a package duly branded or durably marked as aforesaid, shall in every case be delivered to the purchaser in a paper wrapper, and the word ‘Margarine’ shall be printed on the outside of such wrapper, (or, if more wrappers than one are used, on the outside of the outer wrapper) in capital block letters not less than half an inch long and distinctly legible, and no other printed matter (except a statement of the weight in pursuance of any statutory requirement) shall appear on the outside of the wrapper, or, if there are more wrappers than one, of the outer wrapper;
(d ) Margarine shall not be described in any wrapper enclosing it, or on any package containing it, or on any label attached to a parcel thereof, or in any advertisement or invoice thereof, by any name other than either ‘Margarine’ or a name combining the word ‘Margarine’ with a fancy or other descriptive name approved by the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, and printed in type not larger than, and in the same colour as, the word ‘Margarine.’
(4) The requirements of paragraphs (a ), (b ) and (c ) of subsection (3) of this section shall apply to margarine-cheese...
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