ABSTRACT
In a number of cities the people have used self-help, the Imperial Health Department stated in 1878 in a survey about organization of food monitoring in the German Reich. At the end of the 1870s, however, in several cities private associations were formed, the so-called associations against adulteration of food, which plugged this, gap, at least temporarily, by developing their own food controls. This chapter examines their origin and structure. It analyses their strategies for the regulation of food quality and link them to the food monitoring activities of the cities. After long and difficult negotiations in parliament, a unified food law was eventually enacted in 1879, which combined preventative and restrictive methods. But this gave only guidelines on the organization of food monitoring and it was not until World War I that food monitoring agencies and regular controls were established in all German states and municipalities.
