The power cut in Mosta that lasted 24 hours last weekend cost four companies more than €25,000 in spoilt stock.

“We had a cold room full of frozen meats and had to throw it all away – enough to fill the whole store,” said Isaac Mallia, owner of Dayfresh Meats.

Mr Mallia disposed of €15,000 worth of frozen goods after the outage turned his cold room into a “sauna” over the warm summer’s night.

Lights went out in Mosta a few minutes before midnight last Friday after technical complications arose with one of Enemalta’s high tension cables.

Business owners were annoyed because they were repeatedly told by customer care operators that the power would be restored shortly.

It was the weekend, we were fully loaded

“We waited for 24 hours! ‘In an hour or so, in an hour or so...’ We waited all day and got nowhere,” exclaimed Owen Borg, a butcher at Dayfresh who had spent several hours preparing a display of marinated meats the previous afternoon only to find it had all gone rotten by the following morning.

“It’s barbecue season and the weekend is obviously our busiest time so we were fully loaded – we usually sell everything,” Mr Borg said as he dragged the remaining boxes of spoilt rib eye that had thawed overnight.

“We are lucky to have another store in Ħamrun and could restock otherwise we would have lost a day of business too,” he added.

‘We need an SMS system’

Other butchers in the area were not so lucky. Anthony Cardona said he had to think on his feet to keep business going.

“It’s not easy these days, so I borrowed a generator and filled it with petrol, otherwise I wouldn’t even have been able to use the mincer, let alone run the fridges,” Mr Cardona said.

Among the angry business owners was Henry Camenzuli, who lost thousands of euro in specialised vaccines and medication when the refrigerated cabinet went out at his pharmacy.

“They should be stored at around two degrees, and when I got in they were at around 28 degrees, which can be dangerous,” Mr Camenzuli said as he leafed through the list of medications, which included popular children’s vaccinations.

He believes a lot of lost stock could have been saved had the energy provider informed business owners of the blackout.

“There needs to be a system, an SMS or something that informs us this is happening. This could all happen again next week.”

George Lanzon, owner of Kentish Fried Chicken, said he spent the evening waiting for a reply from Enemalta only to be told that power would return shortly.

“A freezer full of ice cream cost me over €1,000 and then there’s all the other food.

“It was a complete disaster,” Mr Lanzon said as two of his employees relived the experience.

Enemalta did not reply to questions about the cause of delay in repairs by the time of going to print.