Fødevaresikkerhed_EN - Flipbook - Page 3
Danish Agriculture & Food Council
Pig Research Centre
October 2025
Danish pork is known for its high food safety, quality and consistency in every
delivery. This is made possible through our sustained efforts in the areas listed
below.
Food safety is ensured by controlling a range of parameters. Slaughterhouses have detailed and comprehensive selfauditing programmes that secure adherence to all legal requirements. The veterinary authorities also play their part by
ensuring that all carcasses are subject to on-site meat inspections. Only healthy carcases are approved for human
consumption.
Hygiene is checked before the start of production, and may not begin until cleaning has been approved by the company.
Hygiene is also monitored during production. Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) programmes guarantee full hygiene
controls and samples are taken for verification. All employees involved in handling food products receive ongoing hygiene
training.
Incidence rate per 100,000 people
Source: DTU National Food Institute
Salmonella is an important parameter in food safety. From 1995 to 1 January 2025, Denmark operated a comprehensive
action plan for Salmonella in pigs and pork, which has kept the prevalence in pork to around 1 per cent or less. From 1
January 2025, slaughterhouses became responsible for maintaining this low prevalence level. Samples from carcasses
are taken daily to test for Salmonella and if established limits are exceeded, the slaughterhouse must take steps to
identify and prevent the cause. Action against Salmonella has resulted in a significant fall in the number of people who
contract a Salmonella infection from Danish pork, see fig. 1.
Fig 1. Infection source statistics showing the number of human cases of salmonella infection caused by Danish pork calculated per
100,000 inhabitants per year. There are no figures for 2018, 2020 and 2022.
Traceability is important in cases where an issue arises in a product or a pig delivered for slaughter. Danish export
slaughterhouses slaughter pigs of Danish origin and ensure full traceability. A high level of digitalisation means that any
issue can be traced in both directions in a matter of hours – back from a product to a group of herds and forwards from a
herd to the various cuts that originate from it, and through to the customers supplied with the product.
www.agricultureandfood.co.uk/
Page 1
