Households spent an estimated €560.8 million on food last year, the National Statistics Office said in a digest of statistics to mark World Food Day today.

The NSO said that last year €125.5 million were spent on fruit and vegetables; €123.6 million on bread and cereals; €115.5 million on meat; nearly €80 million on dairy products; and €43.3 million on fish.

Last year, food consumption expenditure was estimated at 15.0 percent of total private expenditure by final consumers in the local market. In the previous year, this share had been estimated at 14.3 per cent.

In 2007, Maltese farmers took €20.2 million worth of vegetables and fruit to the organised markets. Of this, 14.6 percent was tomatoes. Increases in producer value were recorded for potatoes, onions and water melons.

The main fish species taken to the fish market in 2007 included swordfish, dorado, blue fin tuna and shrimp, which contributed to a total producer value of nearly €5 million. Pork and beef production amounted to 9.4 thousand tonnes, dominated by the production of the former and supplemented by 4.6 thousand tonnes of broiler meat.

In addition, producers sold 39.4 million litres of milk.

Food imports last year reached €427.4 million. Meat, fish, cereals and prepared foods dominated imports of edible items. In the same year, food inflation measured by means of the 12-month moving average rate was 4.35 per cent, while the annual rate as at December 2007 was 8.05 per cent