A Healthy Appetite for World Markets
An English schoolgirl who was asked in the 1980s what she associated with Denmark,replied:“pig,pig,bacon,pig".This may not be an uncommon image,but there is much more both to modern Denmark and to its food industry.
Though it rears than 20 million pigs a year and still provides the best-selling imported bacon in Britain,Denmark,with only 5 million people,produces enough food for three times that number.It also has a large share of world markets in other areas apart from pigmeat where it has specialised such as cheese and fresh and frozen fish.The rise of the primary food industries-pigmeat,dairy products and fish-has been accompanied,too,by the development of in associated industries,many of them world leaders.
The strong position which the country holds in the food industry goes back a long way.Denmark was one of a few countries in Europe which did not react to the challenge of cheap American corn in the 1870s by raising import barriers.Instead,its farmers had to find alternative sources of income,and as a result,developed a lucrative market exporting butter,eggs and bacon to the UK.
The country's food and food technology industry has never looked back.Since entry into the then European Community further support for Denmark's primary agricultural industry has come from the common agricultural policy,which subsidizes exports to non-member countries.
The Danish primary food industries could not be developed without the rise of the companies in associated industries.