The Veterinary and Food Administration units

As of 1 April 2025, the Executive Board consists of:  

Director General​: Nikolaj Veje

Chief Inspection Officer: Thomas Anderskov

Chief Finance Officer: Sarah Børner

Deputy Director General: Vacant

Chief Veterinary Officer: Charlotte Vilstrup Castle

Chief Legal Officer: Christian Vigh

The division is responsible for:

• Support for the executive management of the organization
• Ministerial support
• Policy development
• Coordination of development tasks, including the strategy of the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration
• Strategic and policy-oriented management information
• Internal and external communication
• Press (Film and WebTV)
• Press relations, media training and consulting
• Social media and the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration's websites and other communication platforms
• Cross-sectoral emergency preparedness and emergency planning
• Support for the strategic development of emergency preparedness, including the emergency preparedness policy of the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration
• Food supply security, including the authority tasks related to CER (Critical Entities Resilience) and NIS2 (Network and Information Security Directive)

This division is responsible for:

• Appropriations, allocations, budget and accounts.
• Overall activity and finance management, as well as reporting.
• Bookkeeping.

This division is responsible for:

• Documentation from mink breeders.
• Payout control.

The division is responsible for:

• Monitoring and control of infectious livestock diseases in all animal species
• International cooperation and reporting, e.g. EU (SCOFCAH and working groups), OIE
• Veterinary preparedness, exercises and contingency plans
• Suspicion and disease management

The division is responsible for:

• National turnover, trade and import of live animals
• Registration and identification of livestock
• Approval and registration of veterinary companies, e.g. mating companies and breeding material companies
• Veterinary medicines
• VetStat
• Antibiotic consumption
• Antibiotic resistance in pets
• The "yellow card" scheme for antibiotic use
• Limit values ​​– mortality, antibiotic consumption
• Authorizations etc. (veterinarians, veterinary nurses, farmers, etc.)
• Health Advisory Agreements
• Duties and rights of veterinarians
• Newsletter for veterinarians
• Residues of medicines and prohibited substances in animal products

The division is responsible for:

• Animal welfare during transport, including log books
• Animal welfare in herds
• Animal welfare when slaughtering and killing animals
• Knowledge Center for Animal Welfare (ViD)
• The Animal Welfare Report
• The Dog Act
• Treatment instructions
• The Animal Testing Authority
• Zootechnics (breeding conditions)

The division is responsible for:

• Data processing
• Collection of data from control and the regions

This division is responsible for:

• Strategies and action plans to combat pathogens such as campylobacter in foodstuffs and salmonella and salmonellosis in foodstuffs and livestock.
• Microbiological contamination.
• Tracing the route of infection in the event of food-borne illnesses.
• Hygiene, fitting up and operation of food companies.
• Hygiene training.
• Authorization and registration of food companies.
• BSE/TSE (food safety).
• Zoonoses Register.
• Monitoring zoonoses in general (food-borne).

This division is responsible for:  

• Organic food products.
• Product standards, trade norms and market schemes. 
• Genetic engineering and other novel foods.
• Irradiation of foodstuffs.
• Additives in foodstuffs, including aromatics and enzymes.
• Marketing of foodstuffs, including misleading information.
• Labelling of food products.
• Specific labelling schemes, including schemes regarding beef, geographic designations, designations of origin and specificities.
• Chemical contaminants e.g. dioxin, acrylamide, pesticides.
• Food contact materials.
• Cleaning and disinfection agents.

This division is responsible for:

• Public information campaigns
• General communication about healthy eating and phyiscal activity
• Promoting healthy eating habits among children and young adults
• Promoting healthy eating habits in the general population
• The Keyhole label
• Provision of information to segments of the population with special nutritional needs.

This division is responsible for:

• Control principles and strategies.
• Veterinary and food inspection in general, including the development of tools for the regional units to ensure uniform quality in their performance ​of the inspection effort.
• Instructing the regional veterinary and food inspection units in general inspection matters.
• Supervision of the regional veterinary and food inspection units.
• Case follow-up in relation to the inspection performed by the regional veterinary and food inspection units.
• Internal control.
• Coordination of regional laboratories and central coordination of laboratory projects.
• Traceability.
• Publication of inspection results.
• Collecting and processing data from the inspection and the regional veterinary and food centers.
• Coordination of legal advisory services for the Veterinary and Food Administration including legis​lative technique service
• Coordination and preparation of the annual Legislation Program.
• Coordination of input for cases before the European Court of Justice.
• Administrative Law including i.e. the Public Administration Act, the Open Administration Act and the Personal Data Act.
• Public Tender and Contractual Law.
• Legal assistance for the Veterinary Health Council.

This division is responsible for:

• Control of trade.
• IUU.
• Import and export of live animals, foodstuffs and non-food products.
• Travelling with pet animals.
• Border inspection.
• Export certificates.

This division is responsible for:

Materials/strategies/policy positions, and similar matters related to the

• EU decision-making process and negotiations (everything involving EU institutions or EU representation)
• International affairs (everything involving international organisations), such as the UN, WTO, the SPS Agreement, Codex Alimentarius and OIE, FAO, and Nordic cooperation
• Strategic Sector Cooperation (SSC)
• Export promotion and the export sector
• International rule-making
• The State Consultancy Service

General matters

• Council meeting materials (framework orders)
• Briefing instructions for meetings in the EU (e.g. Coreper, CSA, CVO, HoA, and similar)
• Framework notes on cases handled in the Standing Committee (SCoPAFF)
• Ministerial visits abroad and visits by foreign ministers
• Delegation visits or visits by international organisations
• EU and Business Promotion
• Internal audit
• Parliamentary questions / Section 20 questions from the European Affairs Committee (EUU/FEU)
• Secretariat services for the ministry and the minister concerning cases addressed in the EU Council of Ministers, ministerial participation in export promotion efforts, etc.
• Support functions and coordination on international matters
• Assistance to third countries on the development of food and veterinary safety systems

The Danish Veterinary and Food Administration gives secretariat assistance to the Veterinary Health Council.

This division is responsible for:

• Human resources development.
• Personnel administration.
• Organizational development.
• Administration of supplementary training offers and competency development.
• Secretariat for the Joint Liason Committees and the Joint Health and Safety Committees.

This division is responsible for:

• Customer service.
• Corporate communication.
• Procurement.
• Development and administration of properties and localities.
• Soft Facility Management (outsourced to ISS)
• Payments of invoices and travel administration.

This division is responsible for:

• IT management and organization.
• Corporate IT in the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries of Denmark.
• IT strategy and policy.
• Project management.
• IT security management.
• IT service delivery and support.
• IT operations.

The Meat Inspection Unit monitors food law compliance during animal slaughtering process; meat cutting and meat processing in slaughterhouses; export of beef, pork and poultry from Denmark.

The Meat Inspection Unit is situated in Aarhus in the eastern part of Jutland.

The Danish Veterinary and Food Administration (DVFA) has three food inspection units. These units are in charge of food inspections from raw materials to finished products.​

Inspections at food establishments include checks of internal control schemes, hygiene and labelling.

The Food Inspection Units are responsible f​or:

• Inspections at restaurants, supermarkets and other food establishments according to the Danish smiley scheme
• Registration, approval and licensing of food establishments
• Border control of imports and exports of live animals, foods and non-food products of animal origin
• Sampling for laboratory analysis
• Follow-up on violations established
• Issuance of certificates, e.g. in connection with exports, and sealing of trucks
• Provision of nutritional information by the flying squad set up under the ‘All About Diet’ project

​The DVFA has three veterinary inspection units.

The Veterinary Inspection Units are in charge of inspecting farmed animals, and they develop and maintain emergency measures against infectious livestock diseases and combat such diseases that may break out.

The inspections of farmed animals include:

• ​​Inspection of animal welfare, use of medicinal products and
• Transport conditions

The Veterinary Inspection Units are responsible for:

• Registration, approval and licensing of livestock, transporters and enterprises producing non-food products of animal origin
• Inspections of livestock, assembly centres and transports of livestock, non-food enterprises and inspections of labelling and traceability of live animals
• Sampling for analytical testing
• Follow-up on violations established
• Casework relating to registration, labelling and traceability of live animals
• Issuance of certificates, e.g. in connection with exports and sealing of consignments
• Surveillance tasks, contingency plans and exercises
• Managing of suspicions and control of livestock diseases

This flying squad works together with the Food Inspection Units to check the accounts and documents of enterprises.

It may take action, if illegal enterprises or unlawful slaughter practices have been reported.

The flying squad performs tasks all over Denmark.

This task force is to carry out verification inspections, animal welfare inspections of livestock and inspections of assembly centres, transports of livestock and the use of veterinary medicinal products.

The task force performs tasks all over Denmark.

The laboratory performs both microbiological and chemical analyses. 

The laboratory is responsible for: 

• Nationally coordinated monitoring, mapping and control programmes, e.g. relating to salmonella in meat
• Regionally managed inspection samples
• Market-driven activities: samples and tests requested by private enterprises
• Import sampling