Malta’s Food Safety Commission last year informed the EU of 18 notifications on bad food found on the local market and said that in some cases it had to refuse the importation of foodstuffs.

The rejects included butter infested with mould imported from the UK and bad fish and squid imported from Senegal and China, which were not kept at the right temperature.

The commission also had to intervene various times to inform the public about salmonella in Maltese sausages and other barred substances in local grapes and bottled water.

According to the annual report of the EU’s Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF), in 2009 Malta registered a drop in the number of notifications passed to Brussels. There had been more than 30 such notifications in 2008.

In contrast, there was an increase in the number of total notifications in the EU, reaching nearly 8,000, up 12 per cent on 2008.

The RASFF is a tool enabling quick and effective exchange of information between member states and the European Commission when risks to human health are detected in the food and feed chain.

All members of the RASFF have a round-the-clock service to ensure urgent notifications are sent, received and responded to in the shortest time possible.

According to the Malta commission, many food safety risks had been averted before they could have done any harm to consumers, thanks to this system.

There were 54 notifications where food poisoning was the basis of an investigation leading to a RASFF notification.

Norovirus outbreaks and histamine poisoning were the most reported, but most widespread were the salmonellosis outbreaks.

Outbreaks of hepatitis A were reported in France and The Netherlands after an initial communication of Australia through Infosan, the food safety authorities’ network of the World Health Organisation.