Speeches, etc.

Margaret Thatcher

Speech to Dartford Rotarians (food research)

Document type: Speeches, interviews, etc.
Venue: Bull Hotel, Dartford, Kent
Source: Dartford Chronicle, 6 January 1950
Editorial comments: Lunch.
Importance ranking: Trivial
Word count: 320

‘LADIES' DAY’ AT ROTARY CLUB

Miss Roberts on Food Research

It was appropriate that the speaker at Dartford Rotary Club's “Ladies' Day” luncheon at the Bull Hotel on Tuesday should be Miss Margaret Roberts, B.A., B.Sc., and fitting that her subject was food.

The President, Rotarian H. J. Jiggins, accompanied by Mrs. Jiggins, presided over a company of 120, which included wives of members. list of names (among those present) omitted; Norman Dodds MP sent apologies

The guests were welcomed by Past-president Rotarian A. J. McDonald.

Miss Roberts, prospective Conservative candidate for Dartford, is a food research chemist, and in speaking about the problems of food and food research, she treated the subject entirely non-politically—even when it came to mentioning peanuts.

Research was continually going on, she said, into ways and means of processing raw food materials, of keeping them up to required standards, and of packing. For instance, dried eggs were “traced back—almost to scratch” —(laughter)—by research chemists to find the cause of variations, and one of the latest researches to be done was to find out how peanuts could be roasted without losing any vitamins.

Another recent problem concerned sandwiches which were to be eaten at 20,000ft. in the air. Conditions at that height were imitated in the laboratory, and a way found to pack the food to keep its freshness.

Of the campaign for clean food, Miss Roberts said that perhaps the most important food tests were for bacteria, Every processed food put out by her firm underwent very severe test.

Miss Roberts was thanked by Rotarian C. Bareham.

Appreciation of the efforts of the Rotary Club in assisting her work in Dartford and in caring for not a few of its citizens in an unobtrusive way was voiced by the Mayor.