ARMY BISCUIT

Evening Star, Issue 23697, 3 October 1940, Page 11

ARMY BISCUIT

THE OLD AND THE NEW At a limp when the war is costing Britain more than £7,000,000 a day, it is not surprising that official spending methods should be regarded with an increasingly critical eye. One point concerns the millions of ration biscuits that have to be supplied. Old soldiers must look with astonishment at the daintily wrapped article which has taken the place of the old hard biscuit. The Army biscuit oi 1914-18 may have had defects, but it also had many advantages. It is questionable whether wisdom has been shown in introducing a successor which, it has been said, has cost possibly 80 per cent, more. The famous old biscuit, made of wholemeal and water, was substantial, uncompromising, and unadorned. The new one is very much smaller and thinner. It consists of a mixture of English flour, wheatmeal, milk powder, and sugar. Waste is inevitable through breakages, because the thickness is about an eighth of an inch. The broken pieces cannot be packed and are therefore used as ■ a luxury food for poultry. The packing is said to cost more than the biscuit itself. The biscuits_ are made up' in 4oz packets, containing about 10 or 12. It officially stipulated that the inner wrapping must consist of paper impregnated with glycerine until, in recent months, permission was given for the substitution, if necessary, «f grease-proof cartridge paper. There is an external stout paper wrapping, which is sealed at the ends with gummed paper. A hundred of these packets are placed in a tin canister. Two canisters are placed in a wooden box, and 501 b of biscuits are ready for transport.