Danish Christmas sales at their peak
The Danes' appetite for pork is enormous during the Christmas season. This year, Danish Crown has sold 15 percent more pork roasts, 12 percent more Christmas medlars and 11 percent more minced meat than in 2024. An unusual increase that requires detailed production planning.
"This is our best Christmas sale in Denmark ever, and it is simply fantastic what the employees at our factories achieve during December. It is their flexibility and tireless work that allows us to meet our customers' wishes and ultimately ensure that the Danes have plenty of good Danish pork for Christmas", says Sales Manager Torben Pedersen, who is taking his 19th Christmas holiday as an employee in Danish Crown's sales department.
The record sales are widespread, but the increase in sales is actually greatest for premium products. All products from "Heart Pig", i.e. organic pig, free-range pig, Bornholm pig and Antonius, are completely sold out. At the same time, more and more Danes are willing to pay extra for hook-aged or gourmet salted pork roasts for Christmas.
"There is a lot of good butchery in a hook-ripened pork roast. First it has to be cut out, then it has to be hung correctly on the hook, and when it has matured for about two weeks, it has to be cut, scored, checked and packaged. Of course, this takes time, but it also means that a pork roast weighing about 2.5 kilos can be sold for over 200 kroner in stores", says Hans Jørgen Dahl, head of production at Danish Crown's terminal in Kolding.
Employees on loan
To keep up with demand, Hans Jørgen Dahl has 25 percent more employees working in the run-up to Christmas. Many have been brought in as Christmas helpers, but Danish Crown's branches in Holsted and Vejle have also loaned employees to help ensure the delivery of Christmas orders.
A task that grows year by year in Kolding is the thawing of pork roasts, which are either hook-ripened or come from Hjertegrise. The roasts were produced, packaged and frozen in September and October. Now they are thawed, repackaged and clearly labeled with information that it is a pork roast that has been thawed.
"The quality is top-notch, consumers get a good eating experience, and at the same time we can increase sales of our premium products by 50 percent. We started with it a couple of years ago, and it has been a huge success for all parties. Our customers and consumers are happy with the extra products, and the farmers who have welfare pigs get a slightly better settlement", says Torben Pedersen.
The slaughterhouse in Herning, which produces the majority of orders for the Danish retail trade throughout the year, is also the focal point for the majority of Christmas production. In addition to pork roasts and minced pork, it is the production of Christmas medists in particular that is taking up space in Herning, because several retail chains are running campaigns on Christmas medists in the run-up to Christmas. At the slaughterhouse in Horsens, pork roasts are being produced for the first time this year, which are vacuum-packed and sent directly to retail customers, and finally, the cattle slaughterhouse in Holsted also plays an important role.
"There are a lot of consumers who want minced veal and pork for their meatballs. We normally produce this in Herning, but in the run-up to Christmas we can fill the factory completely with minced pork alone. So instead of driving veal from Holsted to Herning, we now drive pork to Holsted. Or in other words; by thinking across the group we could say yes to more campaigns and sell almost 250,000 extra packages of minced veal and pork in the weeks leading up to Christmas", says a happy Torben Pedersen, who is actually a trained shop butcher himself.
To ensure goods are available in the refrigerated counter during the Christmas period, Danish Crown's factories are producing until December 23rd.
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