SALE OF MOULDY PIE

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24258, 16 May 1944, Page 2

SALE OF MOULDY PIE

FINE OF £SO IMPOSED (P.A.) AUCKLAND. May 15. “Mould is one of nature’s methods of giving warning that the food on which it is growing may not be fit to eat. It has always been interpreted that way by animals and normal human beings. Whatever exceptions there may be, a shop-made oie is not one of them, and he who sells a mouldy pie commits an offence.” This statement was made by Mr J. H. Luxford, S.M., in giving judgment in a case in which John George Hill was charged with selling food unfit for human consumption. Evidence had been given that a woman who bought a steak and egg pie from a city shop of Hill Bros., Ltd., found mould inside it as she was putting it in her oven. A Government analyst had examined it, and had stated that it was unfit for human consumption at the time of sale. A mycologist at the plant diseases division of the Department of, Scientific and Industrial Research, as a witness for the defendant, had stated that the mould on the pie was quite innocuous if eaten.

The Magistrate said that this witness based his opinion on the ground that all moulds belonging to the penicillium group were harmless, but he had not examined the pie in question. The Magistrate quoted expert medical opinion showing that it was dangerous for people to attempt to produce homemade penicillin from the mould found on bread, cheese, or other foods, and that many moulds so far studied had been shown to produce substances as harmful to animals as to bacteria, one having lately been advocated as a rat poison, and the same was likely to apply to the legion which had not yet been investigated. The Magistrate said he was not impressed by the defendant’s system of dealing with left-over pies at the end; of a day. Under his system it would" be possible for the same pie to be a left-over more than once before it was sold, and that probably happened to the pie in this case. A fine of £SO, with costs, was imposed.