15.08.2003
Hunt for hazardous meat

The Danish food authorities have made a very successful, targeted action at Copenhagen Airport to find passengers who illegally bring food back from abroad.

Beef may be hazardous, very hazardous; just a few hundred grammes of meat bought at a market in Thailand and brought back to Denmark in a suitcase may spread infection to hundreds of Danish animals, resulting in animal deaths and huge losses.

That is the background for a recent action made by the Danish Directorate of Food and Veterinary Administration at Copenhagen Airport targeting passengers arriving from a small group of countries where the risk of infection is great and food handling procedures fall far short of western standards.

Over a two-week period, a large number of passengers arriving by air from Turkey, Thailand, Pakistan, Syria, Ethiopia and Somalia where checked on arrival at Copenhagen and asked to open their baggage.

Many kilos

Customs officials and veterinarians from the Border Veterinarian at Copenhagen Airport seized a total of 73.86 kilos of meat, 15 kilos of sausages, 44 kilos of cheese, 5.9 kilos of duck, 3.59 kilos of butter and 7 kilos of honey.

“Some people naturally get furious at the prospect of having to surrender the specialities of their homelands, but that’s the way it is,” says Frede Kristensen, Border Veterinarian at Copenhagen Airport.

According to the authorities, there is every reason to take the threat of infected meat seriously. A number of the diseases which the agricultural sector really fears and which could mean the death of many animals and huge losses to Danish agricultural exports could spread in this country from even a small piece of infected meat.

Already before World War II, it was discovered that foot-and-mouth disease could be transmitted via food. The same applies to much feared diseases such as salmonella, hog cholera, rabies and Newcastle disease. The diseases can be transmitted from food to animals, for instance in waste food fed to pigs. Last year’s major outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the UK occurred because a Chinese man had fed his animals waste food.

Tempting

It is naturally tempting to many travellers from non-western countries to bring back the delicacies of certain countries because it is impossible to get those products in Denmark. But it is illegal to do so.

Only passengers travelling between EU member states (and Norway) are allowed to freely bring food for their own consumption. For a large number of other countries, including the coming EU member states, a few other countries in eastern Europe and countries such as Switzerland, Liechtenstein and San Marino, the rules provide that private individuals are allowed to bring food into the EU, only if it is produced by an EU-approved enterprise. Accordingly, food sold at markets and in small slaughterhouses may not be imported under any circumstances.

For all other countries, including the United States, it is virtually impossible to get permission to bring back milk, milk-based products or meat and meat products.