Food safety is ensured by controlling a range of parameters. Slaughterhouses have detailed and comprehensive self-auditing 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. 

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.

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. 

Consistency is an important parameter when purchasing batches of pork. Danish pig slaughterhouses are known for supplying products with a high level of consistency both within a single delivery and from one delivery to the next. Products conform to customers’ requirements and specifications. 

Residues are unwanted traces of various groups of chemical substances. The authorities check for the presence of pesticides, hormones, growth promoters, heavy metals and residues of veterinary medicines as well as antibiotics. According to the latest calculations, no cases exceeding the established limits have been found in Danish pork. 

The veterinary authorities also check for residues of various types of antibiotics and it is rare for samples to exceed the limit values.

The use of antibiotics in livestock, including pigs, in Denmark is among the lowest in Europe, see fig. 2. The so-called 'yellow card' scheme ensures that antibiotic use is kept to a minimum. Another key factor is that Danish veterinarians are not allowed to sell medicines to pig producers. Instead, all sales are handled through pharmacies. In Denmark, fluoroquinolones, cephalosporins or colistin are not used to treat pigs. These antibiotics are considered critically important in the treatment of humans and are therefore restricted to human use.