Catalogue description Ministry of Food and Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food: Emergency Services Divisions and successors: Registered Files, Food Dehydration (DRY Series)

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Details of MAF 353
Reference: MAF 353
Title: Ministry of Food and Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food: Emergency Services Divisions and successors: Registered Files, Food Dehydration (DRY Series)
Description:

This series covers all aspects of food dehydration in the Ministry of Food and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, including administration of the Aberdeen Experimental Factory. Several pieces relating to the factory contain plans and photographs.

Date: 1948-1961
Related material:

Further papers on food dehydration are in

Separated material:

Other DRY files are to be found in MAF 99

Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Former reference in its original department: DRY file series
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Language: English
Creator:

Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Emergency Services Division II, 1955-1960

Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Food Science and Atomic Energy Division, 1961-1962

Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Food Science and Plant Health Division, 1963-1964

Ministry of Food, Dehydration, 1942-1955

Physical description: 23 file(s)
Access conditions: Open
Accumulation dates: 1941 to 1964
Administrative / biographical background:

In 1948, a joint Ministry of Food/Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) working party was set up to make recommendations for the development of a viable dehydration industry in the UK and the Commonwealth, following concerns expressed by the Commonwealth Advisory Committee on Defence Science to the Defence Committee of the Cabinet in January of that year. The working party reported in June 1948 and recommended that the Ministry of Food should acquire an experimental factory to work on food dehydration. A site adjacent to the DSIR Torrey Research Station in Aberdeen was acquired, and the newly-constructed factory was officially opened in 1951. The factory, which undertook applied research into dehydration of food, with particular emphasis on defence aspects (ie reducing bulk and weight of stored food, while extending its shelf life) was under the general direction of a Ministry of Food (after 1955 Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food) Chief Scientific Officer, but day-to-day staffing and operation was carried out by a service agency (MacFisheries, a subsidiary of Unilever). In 1961 the experimental work of the factory was completed, and from then on it was involved in commercial production.

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