Norway's biggest grocery group NorgesGruppen is thinking of removing Danish pork from supermarket shelves due to concerns that it might contain dangerous bacteria, Ekstra Bladet reports.
Bård Gultvedt, spokesperson at NorgesGruppen told Norwegian newspaper Dagens Næringsliv that the company is worried by the level of antibiotics used in the Danish pig population.
"Antibiotic resistent bacteria is something we are concerned about, but we trust the signals from the food authority Matttilsynet, which states that it's safe to import pork from Denmark. Despite that message, we would like to make our own evaluation of pork imports, especially from Denmark," he said.
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The intention is to find out if there is reason to import pork from another country where antibiotics are not as widely used.
Swine flu scare
The announcement came after Steinar Westin, a professor in social medicine at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, last week called for a ban on importing Danish pork, because he feared people would be infected with antibiotic-resistant MRSA bacteria.
But the Danish food authority Fødevarestyrelsen responded in a press release stating that there is no link between eating pork and being infected with MRSA.
"Fødevarestyrelsen does not agree with the Norwegian professor. Even if MRSA is identified in pork, nothing suggests that cooking or eating it is contagious."
