Army and Navy Bar in Triq il-Kbira, Hamrun and Amazon House in St. Edward Str., Qormi were closed down by the health authorities last month due to imminent risk to public health, the Health Inspectorate Services said in a statement.

The inspectorate said that a manufacturer and a warehouse operators were served with an emergency control order, the former due to the illegal manufacture, processing and packing of food and the latter because of pest activity.

Both outlets were instructed to stop any food production/storage activities.

In November, 459 complaints were lodged with the directorate, 87 of which were related to food. The most common type of food complaints concerned unhygienic premises (18), unfit food (18), risk of contamination (10) and improper labelling (10).

Another 401 complaints were environmental health related.

The department also destroyed 6,372kg of foodstuff last month, namely:

• 5,472kg of cheese due to presence of moulds;

• 544kg of minced pies with lapsed durability date;

• 150kg of horsemeat due to lack of traceability;

• 148kg of bakery goods due to lack of durability date;

• 26kg of flour with insect infestation;

• 6kg jam with improper labelling and lack of traceability;

• 3kg frozen bakersware due to improper labelling

• 2kg ricotta due to risk of contamination and

• 21kg miscellaneous food stuffs

During this period, officials from the Port Health Services also withheld two packages containing tattoo equipment which were being imported illegally into Malta.

In the past month, 10 contraventions were issued/processed by the Health Inspectorate, eight of which were related to food safety issues:

• Two traders for producing and distributing foodstuffs which were not of the nature, substance and quality demanded by the purchaser;

• A catering establishment for breeching an undertaking;

• One retail outlet for selling foodstuffs with information not being in one of the official languages;

• One warehouse for not conforming with an emergency control order issued last year;

• A trader for tampering with foodstuffs that were sealed by the Health Authority;

• One pastizzeria for keeping premises in unhygienic conditions and in bad state of repair, failed to provide certain facilities, and exposing food to risk of contamination; and

• One supermarket for offering for sale foodstuffs with lapsed Use by date.

Two contraventions were related to environmental health as follows:

• Owner of a plot of land for keeping an accumulation of refuse; and

• Owner of a cesspit for failing to render it leakproof.