Legal eating

Last year, the health authorities closed down four restaurants and destroyed more than half a tonne of food which included unrefrigerated meat. This year alone, the Environmental Health Directorate has taken 13 catering establishments to court on illegalities and infringements of health and food safety regulations. Despite these statistics, Environmental Health Director John Attard Kingswell says that the catering industry in Malta in general adheres to standards. Nowadays, any establishment serving food is legally bound to register with the Food Safety Commission after it is given the go-ahead by the Health Inspectorate. The aim of this regulatory process is to make sure that the establishment adheres to the strict standards of the hazard analysis and critical control points and serves food which does not pose a risk to the health of consumers. The rules are very strict and rightly so. If a strict health and safety regime is imposed on the catering industry, then the customer can rest assured that a meal won’t be the cause of a surprise visit to hospital. Among some of the most common rules applied to catering establishments are that food must be stored at the right temperature...