This essay explores how Stockholm achieved obligatory meat inspection and built a general slaughterhouse as an example of how formal and informal institutions were built in the context of the first industrialisation wave in Stockholm. The focus of the study is the health police in Stockholm 1878-1912 and their lobby work towards obligatory meat inspection. The essay deviates from Douglass Norths theories of new institutionalised economics. The idea of this theory is that formal institutions like new legislation arise from informal institutions and practices that derives from private and public organisations collaborating, competing and trying to improve. The conclusion of this essay is that the health police were very active in the building process of the general slaughterhouse and obligatory meat inspection, but it could also be concluded that the private organisations (the butchers and meat producers) also played an important role in the process.