Joseph Muscat told this newspaper that since importation of long-life UHT milk began when Malta joined the European Union, for the first time in years the MDP had too much surplus milk that it could not even be stored.

“The surplus milk is being used to make ricotta cheese. In normal practice, ricotta was made with equal parts fresh and powdered milk. The MDP is using fresh milk because it has nothing else to do with it,” he said.

Mr Muscat explained that apart from the loss in sales of milk, ricotta cheese was no longer cost effective with only fresh milk being used in production. “It’s a double blow,” he said. To make the situation worse, he said, better quality ricotta cheese was also being imported.

Mr Muscat said reality was hitting home. “We have a situation where yes, there is more choice, and prices on foreign goods have gone down. But the problems will come later. What happens when local companies go out of business?” asked Mr Muscat.

The Malta Independent attempted to contact the MDP for their comments on two occasions. The first was Wednesday when we were told that all public relations employees were in a meeting and that we had to call back on Thursday.

TMID duly complied, and we got in touch with someone from PR, but he told us he could not answer our queries and that he would call back. Contact details were left, but no phone call was received.