It also specified the relationship between the government and the recently privatised British Sugar and permitted local authorities to establish cold storage facilities.

The Food Act 1984 was passed by the Houses of Parliament in 1984, during Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher's second term in office as prime minister.

[3] It is also an enabling act, allowing ministers of health and of agriculture to introduce further regulations and codes of practice in the future without additional primary legislation.

The "substance" clause relates to the composition of the food and includes adulteration, contamination or foreign bodies.

[11] Most prosecutions under the substance clause tended to be for obvious breaches such as visible mould growth or the presence of foreign bodies.

[18] In 2021 Newark Town Council discovered that its 1329 Royal Charter permitted only a weekly Wednesday market and an annual May fair.

It had been operating additional weekly markets on Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays and was required to use the Food Act 1984 to designate these.

[19] In November 2022 Leicester City Council used their powers under the act and in combination with their 1199 market charter (granted by King John) to levy a charge of £64 on two Christmas lights switching-on events in Oadby and Wigston.

[8] Aside from the modernisation in 1990, the basic structure of British food law has not changed substantially since 1984, though several new regulations have been introduced by ministers.