By-Gone Bread By-laws
While grocers and bakers are currently in hot water, steaming under the allegations of bread price-fixing, at one time, the Town of Lindsay passed a "bread by-law."
Lindsay’s Town Hall. 1918. Beall Scrapbook.
In the year 1880, The Canadian Post published the terms of the new bread by-law for the regulation of bread sold within the town. The specifics deemed all bread had to be in loaves of either two or four pounds and any bread offered for sale of less weight would be seized and forfeited for use by the poor. Any purchaser could request the vendor to weigh the bread. Within ten days of the passing of the by-law, vendors had to get a stamp made bearing the name or initials of the manufacturer and stamp every loaf offered for sale. The by-law also allowed for such seizures to be made under the direction of the mayor, reeve or chairman of the committee on markets. Punishments included fines of $5 ($150 equivalent today) for first offence and up to $30 for repeat offenders. If the offender wasn't able to pay, they could be sentenced to jail time with or without hard labour.
The by-law was enforced in November 1893, when according to the Watchman, "Chief Short, last week paid his respects to the town bakers and seized in one shop twenty-six loaves, which were found to be considerably under the legal weight. He also found so called "fancy" bread under weight, but did not seize it. The confiscated goods were handed to the central charity committee for distribution among the poor of the town.
Queen’s Necklace bread plate. ca. 1870s. Manufactured by Bellaire Goblet Co., Ohio. 1975.727.1
Bakers protested the by-law as unfair, stating that bread might be under weight due to a variety of conditions, such as evaporation from steam or because they were training a new baker who had trouble getting the loaves to the right weight.
By 1962 Lindsay's bread by-law required bakers to be licensed by the Town of Lindsay, pay an annual fee of $1 ($10 equivalent today) and be certified by the Medical Officer of Health for the town. Punishment for contravening the by-law no longer included jail time.
Lindsay wasn't the only local jurisdiction to enact a bread by-law. Fenelon Falls enacted the law in 1875 and Bobcaygeon in 1907. It's interesting to note that neither Fenelon Falls nor Bobcaygeon mentioned anything about distributing the underweight bread to the poor. The 1899 update to the Fenelon Falls by-law required bread to be made "of good and wholesome flour free from adulteration" and "any other deleterious material," preventing bakers from using filler to make up the weight of the loaf.
The local bread by-laws likely became obsolete when the province took over regulating the sale of foods, but were formally repealed in 2012 under the City of Kawartha Lakes By-Law Number 2012-033.
Written by Sara Walker-Howe.