Danish Bacon facts for kids
Danish Bacon was a well-known brand of bacon from Denmark that was sold in the United Kingdom. You could often see the word "Danish" stamped on the bacon's rind with wavy lines. Farmers in Denmark who produced this bacon worked together in groups called co-operatives. Most of this bacon came from a large farmer-owned co-operative called Danish Crown. This system helped keep costs low because they produced a huge amount of bacon (about 25 million pigs each year!). Most of the bacon made in Denmark was sent to other countries.
Danish pig farmers started sending their bacon to the UK in the mid-1800s. This happened when it became harder to export to Germany. Since then, Danish bacon exports have grown a lot, even though UK producers and other countries tried to compete. Denmark became very good at modernizing how they cured bacon and made their production more centralized.
Today, Denmark mainly focuses on raising pigs. The actual curing and packing of bacon often happens in other countries. This bacon is still sold as "Danish," which some people find a bit confusing, even in Denmark. Pigs raised for the UK market used to be kept separately and raised in a special way to meet UK standards, especially because of concerns about pig welfare in Denmark. However, this special separation stopped after 2013 when a new rule across Europe meant that certain types of pig pens (called sow stalls) were no longer allowed.
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How Danish Bacon Was Organized
Most pig farms in Denmark are part of one of two big farmer-owned co-operatives. These co-operatives handle about 95% of all pigs slaughtered in Denmark. The biggest one is Danish Crown, which alone handles 90% of the pigs. All bacon exported from Denmark goes through these two co-operatives. There are some smaller slaughterhouses that sell bacon only within Denmark, but they don't have licenses to export.
Even though it can be expensive to produce bacon in Denmark and there are many rules, the country has become very good at it. This is because their co-operatives work on a very large scale and are well-organized. In this system, there are no markets or auctions where pigs are bought and sold. Instead, prices are decided each week by a committee. This saves a lot of money because animals don't need to be moved around as much.
About 25 million pigs are slaughtered in Denmark every year. That's like 5 pigs for every person living in Denmark! Pig production has continued to grow over the years. About 75% of all the bacon produced in Denmark is sent to other countries.
A Look Back: History of Danish Bacon
In the 1800s, Denmark mostly sold grain to the UK. But then, countries like the United States and Russia started selling grain for cheaper. So, Denmark began to focus on raising pigs and making butter instead. English Large White pigs were even sent to Denmark in the early 1800s to help improve their pig breeds.
Denmark started exporting bacon to the UK as early as 1847. However, large-scale production didn't really begin until 1864. At that time, a war made it impossible to send live pigs to Germany, where they used to be slaughtered. So, Denmark had to start doing all the processing themselves. Exports to the UK became much more important after Germany put up trade barriers and then banned importing live pigs in the late 1800s. Denmark needed a new market for almost 300,000 pigs a year!
The UK welcomed Danish bacon. After the Industrial Revolution, the UK's population grew, and the country couldn't produce enough food for everyone. There was also a growing demand for food from working-class people who had more money. The number of pigs in Denmark grew from about 440,000 in 1871 to nearly 2.5 million by 1914.
Back then, British workers often ate bacon two or three times a week. Bacon and eggs became a popular traditional British breakfast. Before this, it was too expensive for many working-class families. By the end of the 1800s, 90% of all Danish pig exports went to the UK. This made up 20% of everything Denmark exported! Denmark became the main supplier of bacon to the UK, taking over from the U.S. Even in the 1980s, Danish Bacon still held more than 25% of the UK market.
The Rise of Co-operatives
The first farmer-owned co-operative bacon factory in Denmark opened in 1887. Many more followed quickly, and by 1900, co-operatives were more common than private businesses. At this time, exporting live pigs almost stopped, and instead, Denmark exported pork and bacon.
There was a lot of competition between the co-operatives and private companies, but the co-operatives eventually became the most successful. They also faced competition from foreign companies. One of these was from Hamburg, Germany, which bought and opened bacon factories in Denmark to get around the German ban on live pigs. This company worked closely with a major bacon maker from Ireland, and together they controlled a large part of the UK market. However, they never managed to beat the co-operatives and eventually sold their Danish operations in 1968.
Another big foreign competitor was the English Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS). They had offices in Denmark from 1881. From 1899, they even started making their own bacon in Denmark. Their production grew until 1930 but then slowly went down, and CWS started selling off its Danish businesses in 1971.
The Danish Bacon brand first appeared in the UK in 1902. This was when the Danish Bacon Agency Limited (which later became the Danish Bacon Company, and is now part of Danish Crown) was set up by the co-operatives in London to handle exports to the UK. The main group of Danish co-operatives, known in the UK as the Danish Bacon and Meat Council, was formed in 1897. This group was in charge of marketing Danish Bacon in the UK. After 1908, Danish law required that all meat for export had to be slaughtered in public slaughterhouses. Bacon was also checked and stamped to show it was healthy and from a specific slaughterhouse.
The main co-operative group was absorbed into a larger Danish farming organization in 2009. Through many mergers and takeovers, Danish Crown became the largest co-operative, controlling most of the Danish slaughterhouses by 2000.
World Wars and Trade
Danish bacon exports to the UK were stopped during both world wars. During World War One, it was hard to get enough imported grain to feed the pigs. In World War Two, German forces either took or sank Danish ships carrying bacon to Britain. About 6,500 tonnes of bacon were lost this way. When Germany occupied Denmark in 1940, all exports to Britain stopped completely.
After the wars, attempts were made to make British bacon production more like Denmark's, but it didn't fully replace Danish bacon. Danish bacon remained a big topic in trade talks between the two countries. People in the UK Parliament were still talking about how British bacon production wasn't as organized as Denmark's in the 1950s. Danish bacon became famous in Britain for its mild taste, which people preferred over the heavily salted bacon from the US. Other countries, like Canada, tried to sell bacon to Britain during this time, but Danish bacon was always the standard for quality.
Modern Bacon Production
Bacon production methods changed over time. The old way, called dry-curing, involved rubbing salt, spices, and sugar into the bacon. This took a lot of work. The newer way, called wet-curing, is easier. The bacon is soaked in salty water (brine). Wet curing can also add more water to the meat to make it heavier and can use special ingredients to make the process much faster. It can take as little as six hours, compared to 2-3 days for dry curing.
The co-operatives have also been moving towards having fewer, but much larger, slaughterhouses and bacon processing plants. Some of these plants have even moved out of Denmark to places where it's cheaper to operate. This means Denmark now mostly focuses on just raising the pigs. In the 1960s, new technologies like vacuum packing and automated slicing were introduced. In the 1970s, farms became more specialized in raising pigs, and the process became more like a factory. The number of farmer-owned co-operatives dropped from 62 in 1962 to just two today.
Denmark Imports Bacon Too
In 2001, about 5% of the bacon eaten in Denmark was imported from other countries. Between 2004 and 2005, a lot of bacon production moved to Germany and especially Poland, where costs were lower. This quickly led to imports making up 75% of the bacon eaten in Denmark, and the price of bacon dropped a lot. However, this bacon is still sold as Danish bacon because it's made from Danish pigs. In Danish shops, it's hard to find sliced bacon that was actually sliced in Denmark. Some Danish consumers have said they are unhappy with this, feeling it's a bit misleading. In the UK, Danish bacon is still sliced and packaged in UK plants owned by Danish Crown.
The UK Pig System
There was a special system for raising pigs specifically for the UK market, and these were called UK pigs. The rules for these pigs were set not only by UK laws but also by the big UK supermarkets that bought them. Similar systems exist for pigs going to other markets, like organic pigs raised to EU rules.
The UK pig system started in the late 1990s. At that time, a British politician suggested banning Danish bacon. He claimed that the "sow stall" system used in Denmark put British pig farmers at a disadvantage because British rules didn't allow them to use it. Sow stalls were small pens where mother pigs (sows) couldn't move around much. UK supermarkets then demanded better pig welfare conditions. This led to the UK pig system, where sows were able to move freely. Danish farmers were paid extra money to cover the costs of raising these UK pigs.
Sow stalls were criticized again in 2009 by a famous chef. The Danish Bacon industry said they were still used on some farms but were completely phased out before the EU deadline in 2013.
Advertising Danish Bacon
Danish Bacon was advertised a lot on British television. One advertisement in 1999 caused many complaints. The ad showed a teenage girl acting strangely, but then she smelled frying bacon and seemed delighted, even turning her head all the way around. People said the ad was in bad taste, and because it was shown during the day, many parents complained. This led to the advertising commission stopping the ad from being shown before 9 pm.
Images for kids
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The logo for Danish Bacon
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Danish bacon cooking
