Danish initiatives to improve the safety of meat products

During the last two decades the major food safety problems in Denmark, as determined by the number of human patients, has been associated with bacterial infections stemming from meat products and eggs. The bacterial pathogens causing the majority of human infections has been Salmonella and Campylobacter, and to a lesser extent Yersinia, Escherichia coli O157 and Listeria.

Danish initiatives to improve the safety of meat products have focused on the entire production chain from the farm to the consumer, with a special emphasis on the pre-harvest stage of production. The control of bacterial pathogens which are resistant to antibiotics has been a new area of attention in the recent decade, and recently, the increasing globalization of the domestic food supply has called for a complete rethinking of the national food safety strategies.

The implementations of a ‘‘case-by-case” risk assessment system, as well as increased international collaboration on surveillance, are both elements in this new strategy.