Denmark's Food Revolution?

The Food Programme

BBC

Arts, Food

4.4 • 943 Ratings

🗓️ 11 April 2025

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this second episode from Copenhagen, Sheila Dillon explores why Denmark leads the way in organic food consumption.

In 2023, nearly 12% of all food bought in Denmark was organic—one of the highest levels in the world. In the UK, that figure is just 1.5%.

But how did Denmark get here? And can the organic movement keep growing as the conversation shifts toward climate concerns and plant-based eating?

Sheila meets the people shaping Denmark’s food future, from organic farmers to chefs and researchers. She also asks how does this apparent national embrace of organic food sit alongside Denmark’s industrial farming, including its vast pork industry?

Featuring conversations with: • Trine Hahnemann – Chef, writer, and campaigner • Trine Krebs – Organic farmer and Green Chef at The Food Organisation of Denmark • Prof. Ole Mouritsen – Gastrophysicist researching how to encourage more plant-based eating • Søren Buhl Steiniche – Head chef at EAT, a public kitchen serving Copenhagen’s schools • Heidi Svømmekjær – Copenhagen-based food writer and home cook

Presented by Sheila Dillon Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Natalie Donovan

Transcript

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0:33.4	You're about to listen to another episode of the food program.
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0:47.1	First on BBC Sounds.
0:49.2	We're in Copenhagen again in this edition of the food program.
0:52.3	And I'm learning a few things about how policy set from on high can, in a country that takes food seriously and with pleasure, change people's lives.
1:03.0	This is a story about a country that's very pro-organic, or so says Organic Denmark, one of the country's biggest organic food industry associations.
1:14.6	In 2023, almost 12% of the food Danes bought was organically produced. In the UK, it's 1.5%.
1:24.6	Is it just another of those scandy things like Huger and Telly Noir?
1:29.3	Unsurprisingly, those organic figures are not accidental.
1:33.3	So as the world struggles with climate change, food security and a marketplace awash with ultra-processed foods,
1:41.3	how have they done it?
	...

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