Twiggy, The Capones, And Date Labels On Foodstuffs
On January 17, 1920, America embarked upon what Herbert Hoover described as “a great social and economic experiment” with the implementation of the National Prohibition Act which outlawed the manufacture, sale, or transportation of “intoxicating liquor”. The thirteen-year experiment ended in failure, defeated by the insuppressible demand for alcohol amongst the public and inefficiency and corruption within the law enforcement agencies, which allowed violent gangsters to supply alcohol, often of dubious quality, at great profit.
Chief amongst them was Al Capone, who built up a business worth $60m based on the manufacture and transportation of alcohol with side lines in gambling and prostitution. His gang ruthlessly protected and expanded his business, earning him and his brother, Ralph, the sobriquets of public enemy numbers one and three respectively. The passing of the 21st Amendment in February 1933, ratified on December 5th, ending prohibition was a severe blow to Capone’s business empire.
With a transportation network and bottling facilities, he turned his attention to a product that everyone consumed, and which offered a bigger mark-up than alcohol, milk. That milk in the Chicago was supplied by a union-controlled farm, Meadowmoor Dairies, was but a minor inconvenience. Capone sent his boys round, kidnapped the Union President, ransomed him for $50,000, and when the money was paid, used it to buy the farm.
According to Deirdre Capone, in her book Uncle Al Capone: The Untold Story From Inside His Family (2010), it was her grandfather, Ralph rather than Al, as popularly supposed, who lobbied the dairy industry to beef up its health and safety standards, after a friend’s child had become seriously ill from drinking out-of-date milk. His efforts to put labels on milk bottles with expiry dates earned Ralph the nickname of “Bottles”. It was not an altogether altruistic exercise as the Capones had extensive bottle labelling facilities. Whilst there is no independent evidence to substantiate the claims, shortly after the Capones involved themselves in the milk industry, date labels became mandatory in Illinois.
Date labels on foodstuffs first appeared in Britain behind the scenes, in the storerooms of Marks and Spencer, in the 1950s as a means of improving control over stock levels and, ironically, to reduce wastage. In 1973 the store’s executives brought them out from the back of the store on to the shelves, calling them sell-by dates and, in an advertising blitz, informing their customers that “the sell-by date means that St Michael foods are fresh”. There was even a television advert featuring the model, Twiggy.
Other supermarkets soon followed suit, as the Marks and Spencer experience showed that shoppers found reassurance in purchasing foodstuffs with a sell-by date. By the 1980s the scope of dating food was expanded to encompass best before and use-by dates, which, far from being helpful and reassuring, sowed the seeds of confusion in the mind of shoppers, especially as Britons became more adventurous in the type and range of foods they bought.
Now the tide has turned once more, and the practice of date labelling foods is rapidly approaching its expiry date. Dates will continue to be shown on highly perishable foodstuffs, for food safety and public health reasons, but for the rest we will be reliant upon our senses and the sniff test. Granny knew best all along.
