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During the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries food
adulteration was widespread. Bread, the
mainstay of the poor, was the worst
affected. By the middle of the nineteenth
century the modern pure food movement
started and by 1860 the first Food and
Drink Act was passed. In 1887 the first
Lyons business had been started because
the founders wanted to improve on the poor
quality of exhibition catering. This, and
catering generally, was the subject of
much criticism from public and newspaper
correspondents alike. Food quality was
therefore one of the fundamental
objectives that management set themselves
when the business was first founded.
Monitoring the purity of raw materials and
controlling all food production processes
became an obsession with management. A
Bio-Chemical laboratory was first formed
in the early 1920s which was progressively
enlarged so that by 1928 it became
necessary to build a large purpose built
laboratory to house the growing number of
chemists engaged on all aspect of food
quality. It is thought to have been the
first of its kind in the world. Such was
its reputation that dozens of Oxbridge
graduates scrambled for jobs as a
springboard to further their careers. The
UKs first lady prime minister, Margaret
Thatcher, once worked in the laboratories
after graduating in Chemistry. Under Dr
Leslie Lampitt, the pioneering chemist who
brought this all about, the Lyons
Laboratories became nationally and
internationally recognised and a model for
many other food manufacturers.
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