The Environmental Health Directorate wants to find a remedy for the situation that arises when a restaurant served with an emergency control order sheds a negative light on neighbouring eateries because it is not named.

The origins of meats,including pork, lamb and poultry – not just beef – would have to be labelled

The issue was highlighted in The Times recently after the health authorities did not name a Ta’ Xbiex restaurant that had been served with an emergency control order for lack of hygiene, although the locality itself was mentioned.

Infuriated restaurant owners in the area claimed their reputation could suffer as a result.

Citing legal reasons, Environmental Health director John Attard Kingswell said the matter was being addressed and all possibilities looked into. He explained that when a property was closed down, a notice was affixed and it became public domain. But other emergency control measures that did not involve closure did not require a notice and were, therefore, not made public until the matter went to court.

He was speaking at Smart Supermarket in Balzan where emphasis was being laid on the importance of reading food labels.

The directorate received 247 complaints on labelling this year, a figure Mr Attard Kingswell considered low, given the number of contraventions the directorate came across through monitoring and also the fact that it received about 7,000 grievances annually.

Caterers, he said, would be advised to put allergy warnings on their menus once the new Food Information to the Consumer Regulation, published last week, came into force in three years’ time.The new regulation repeals most of the EU labelling directives, introducing, for example, a mandatory list of allergens even for non-packaged foods.

The industry – and not just consumers – needs to be geared up for the changes that also include nutritional information on packages, which would have to go by portions and not per 100 grammes, or millilitres in the case of liquids.From December 2014, the amount of fat – not energy – will top the list on the package, being the most important in terms of ­nutrition.Among the changes the regulations are bringing about, the origins of meats, including pork, lamb and poultry – and not just beef – would have to be labelled. The EU was also embarking on a study to determine whether products containing 50 per cent meat should have labelling that stated its origin too, Mr Attard Kingswell said.

Health Minister Joe Cassar said Malta was one of the member states that had insisted on this. Consumers had a right to know where their meat was coming from while sellers should be prevented from taking advantage of the situation and saying a foreign product was local, he said.The Health Department’s Food Safety Week, now in its fourth year, has produced leaflets and a calendar on labelling to raise awareness of the importance of avoiding sickness.

Among the initiatives, students of the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology are going around supermarkets, asking questions on the subject and passing round a questionnaire, through which consumers can win a trip to Frankfurt.