One of Malta’s favourite nibbles, Twistees, which was established 40 years ago and is produced by Darrell Lea Foods, has also been affected by the Libyan crisis, Ray Calleja, the company’s chairman, said yesterday.

The Twistees baked snacks are rice based and come in a mix of different flavours, including cheese, bacon, smoky barbecue and chicken, and around 35,000 packets of Twistees are produced every day.

“We started exporting to Libya in 2009 and we were doing very well. However, since the outbreak of the crisis, we stopped our exportation to the north African country,” Mr Calleja said, adding that he had no idea if or when the company will resume exporting to Libya.

“We are hopeful, however, that we will be able to do so, especially if the situation calms down in the future. Notwithstanding this, Twistees has done very well in the local market, to the extent that it has become a household name and we estimate that Twistees enjoys 30% of the share out of all snacks consumed in Malta”.

Asked how much revenue the company is losing out on by stopping its exports to Libya, Mr Calleja preferred not to comment, but pointed out that around two large containers were shipped out to Libya, containing one of Malta’s most loved products, every year.

He said that despite the Libyan crisis, Twistees has continued its successful exportation to several countries, most notably the UK, and is looking at exporting to Germany within the next two months.

Mr Calleja was speaking as Finance Minister Tonio Fenech, Jason Azzopardi, parliamentary secretary responsible for small businesses, and Malta Enterprise chairman Alan Camilleri went on a tour of the company’s factory yesterday morning in Marsa.

Mr Fenech chuckled as he remarked that he had “fulfilled a childhood dream” by going round the factory, and pointed out that he has “yet to meet someone who doesn’t like Twistees”.

He praised the company for managing to withstand competition from the foreign market and by making the most of government schemes and investing in the latest machinery and equipment which has enabled it to remain a success in Malta.

Mr Fenech also shook hands with George Briffa, who has been an employee of the company since it was founded and who told the minister that 40 years down the line, the taste of Twistees has always remained the same.

The Finance Minister added that the success of companies such as Darell Lea Foods stimulate economic growth on the whole.

He remarked that in 2010, Malta’s economy grew by 3.7%, which led to more jobs becoming available in the labour market and concluded by referring to last Tuesday’s statistics released by the European Commission which revealed that, with an increase of 3.4%, employment growth in Malta was the highest in the last quarter of 2010 among the 27 EU states.