Denmark’s chicken fight with salmonella

Pictured below is a retail package containing raw skinless/boneless chicken that was recently purchased in Denmark (DK) Europe. The labeling on the package is claiming to Danish consumers (where there’s an orange drawing of a chicken within a round circle): “Dansk Salmonelllafri Kylling,”when translated means - “Danish salmonella-free chicken.”  How would such a labeling declaration that claims the raw chicken one is purchasing is “salmonella free” be received in the states? Do DK’s poultry hatcheries/farmers/processors and academia know something regarding the lowering of salmonella that the U.S. poultry industry and USDA don’t know? No. Having “salmonella free” chicken on a mass scale isn’t possible – or if it’s close, at what price? For contextual comparisons, DK’s geographic size compares to the state of Maryland with a population boarding 5.5 million people. DK harvests 100 million chickens a year compared to the states’ 8.5 billion chickens.  In 1993, a major Danish retailer (COOP-DK) stopped the marketing of domestic broiler chickens that exceeded the <5 percent target. Danish chicken that couldn’t meet <5 percent resulted with producers suffering severe losses as they were forced to export their chickens to inferior priced markets.With the initial program being successful, the NSCP lowered their initial goal from <5 percent to a complete eradication, or zero tolerance of salmonella involving broiler production. The revised program centered on a pyramid that started prudently at the hatcher/broiler breeding level that trickled downstream to Danish dinner plates.Danish farmers were given incentives (the DK government and the EU initially compensated owner’s of destroyed breeding stock for their losses) for salmonella free birds, which allowed them to label their processed birds as “salmonella free.”