In episode four, which was aired on UK television last weekend (23 November), Birgitte Nyborg’s (the main character) boyfriend fell ill after eating pork in a Copenhagen restaurant. However, it transpired that Nyborg’s boyfriend was allergic to the penicillin in the pork.
Nyborg is Denmark’s ex-Prime Minister (in the show) and eager to return to a career in politics. The incident provided her with the ammunition to challenge the government on its plans to relax controls on pig farmers.
However, the Danish Agricultural & Food Council (DAFC) said it was concerned that the programme’s portrayal of the Danish pig industry was “outdated” and in some respects “inaccurate”.
“The dramatic treatment of a number of specific issues may raise understandable concerns in an audience relatively unfamiliar with much of the detail of modern pig production,” it said.
“The DAFC is keen that a number of these issues are seen in a balanced context and believes that Danish pig farmers can amply demonstrate a commitment to producing high-quality pork and bacon, adhering to strict standards of animal welfare, food safety and increasingly sustainable production methods.”
Denmark’s pig production in numbers:
- Number of sows due to increase in 2022 from 50,000 to 1,086,000;
- Denmark is Europe’s fifth-largest pork producer;
- Around 29m piglets born each year;
- Exported more than 1.6m tonnes of pigmeat last year;
- Productivity improvements to boost piglet production to 36.4m and finisher production to 23.8m by 2022;
- Number of finished pigs in Denmark to increase to more than 4m.