Cap. 649 Art. 2Interpretation.     Cap. 595.  Cap. 595.  Cap. 595.

In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires:

"Authority" means the Food Safety and Security Authority established in article 4;

"Board" means the Board of Governors of the Authority composed of the Chairperson and members appointed in accordance with article 5;

"Chief Executive Officer" means the officer appointed with the responsibility for the executive management of the Authority in accordance with article 7;

"Chairperson" means the Chairperson of the Authority and includes, in the circumstances mentioned in article 5(4), the Deputy Chairperson or any other person appointed to act as Chairperson;

"entity of the public administration" includes any body being a "government agency", "Department of Government" or

"government entity" and, or "public officer" as defined in the

Public Administration Act;

"food" means any substance or products, inclusive of plants and animals, whether processed, partially processed or unprocessed, intended to be, or reasonably expected to be, ingested by humans, and includes and, or excludes any other substance or product as the Minister may by regulations prescribe;

"food business" includes any undertaking, whether for

*See article 1(2) and (3) of the Act as originally promulgated, and Legal Notice 128 of 2025. profit or otherwise and whether public or private, carrying out any of the activities related to any stage of production, inclusive of primary production, the processing and distribution and the importation and exportation of food;

"food control" includes the totality of all regulatory, licensing, enforcement and preventive action and other activities conducted for purposes of food security, food quality, food safety and hygiene, compositional, nutritional or other value, or otherwise, in relation to the primary production, preparation, processing, sale and provision of food or food sources in, or seeking admittance into Malta, including the operation of all food businesses by whosoever managed;

"food premises" means any premises used for the purposes of a food business and includes stalls, whether in open or closed markets, vehicles, whether movable or otherwise, and sea-going vessels, including fishing vessels;

"Minister" means the Minister responsible for food;

"officer" includes any employee or member of staff of the Authority;

"Permanent Secretary" means the Permanent Secretary within the Ministry responsible for food;

"public employee" shall have the same meaning as assigned to it in article 2 of the Public Administration Act;

"public officer" shall have the same meaning as assigned to it in article 2 of the Public Administration Act;

"Regulation (EU) 2016/679" means Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation).