The food industry needs to look at the safety of its food products not simply as a set of regulations but as part of its corporate responsibility, said Permanent Secretary for Elderly and Community Care Helen D'Amato.

Mrs D'Amato was speaking at a seminar organised by the Malta Association of Environment Health Officers (MAEHO) in collaboration with the Malta Business Bureau (MBB). The seminar was entitled "The advantages of implementing HACCP as a means of enhancing food safety."

She pointed out that food safety also has an impact on the tourism sector.

"Our main economic pillar would greatly suffer if Malta were to somehow acquire notoriety for poor food safety," she said.

The EU helped improve Malta upgrade its level of food safety and control through participation in EU programmes on Food Safety Auditing, said Mrs D'Amato.

"However, I still believe that, with the help of the EU, we need to continue to invest in food safety and control in order to provide the Department of Health with more and better resources and expertise," she added.

She called for the food industry to gear its food safety measures into a single approach that can effectively reduce the risk of food contamination to a minimum. "The HACCP system presents us with a possible and very plausible response to this need," she concluded.