Recently in Pigs Category

Imagine my surprise when, on arrival at a hotel in Horsens, Denmark, I found posters of Jamie Oliver everywhere.

And I mean EVERYWHERE!

Hotel reception, the rooms, the bar and even in the hotel shop where an entire bookcase was given over to his cookery books.

I'm a big fan of Jamie, and anyone watching his latest travels around America can't help but marvel at the way he has turned himself into a global superstar.

But what I found slightly ironic was that just weeks after his show Jamie Saves Our Bacon earlier this year - where he heavily criticised the Danish pig industry - he signed a deal with a chain of 150 Scandinavian Hotels.

Front man for Scandic Hotels food, he is a real selling point for them and they are proud of the association, advertising it at every possible stage.

And chatting to Danish farmers and industry representatives it is clear that Danes really didn't feel the effect of Jamie's war on foreign imports.

He criticised Danish welfare and he urged people to buy British. But as far as sales of Danish bacon and pork went, there was very little change.

And no hard feelings too, as a lucrative deal with a poular chain of hotels demonstrates.

He may have knocked their industry but it is very clear the Danes still well and truly love Jamie Oliver.

As my plane touched down in Copenhagen airport last week the excitement from the Danish press and public was palpable.

Camped out in the airport waiting to get a glimpse as the plane touched down, this was one of the most highly anticipated foreign dignitaries to arrive in the country for some time.

Unfortunately I never caught a glimpse of Barrack Obama as he flew in to (unsuccessfully as it turns out) back Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympics.

I was of course there on far more important business - to see first hand how the world-famous Danish pig industry is getting along.

And I must say, I was impressed.

A visit to Danish Crown's ultra-modern processing plant in Horsens demonstrated just how far advanced the industry can be.

A huge facility, spanning 82,000 square metres and putting through some 93,000 pigs a week the place looks more like teletubbyland than a processing plant.

Almost everything is automised, from sanitation to cutting, weighing and sorting the carcasses. It is quite an achievement, and one that cost the firm €305m to build.

It even has a visitor's gallery.

There's no wandering around the killing floor, but instead you get a feel for the plant through a series of Perspex windows which look out onto the plant at almost every point in the production process.

Groups of schoolchildren visit the plant along with thousands of visitors from across the world every year. That alone is quite amazing - imagine the uproar in the UK if children were taken to an abattoir on a field trip!

And while it's refreshing to see that connection with the public it is also quite disconcerting.

The very fact that it has a visitor's gallery unnerved me.

It ensures you only see what they want you to see and there's always someone on hand to answer the hard questions.

I have no doubt that the plant is the most advanced in the world and its work to cut its carbon footprint is worthy of great praise.

But it didn't seem real somehow, more like a working museum than anything else.

And farming in Denmark is very much the same wherever you go.

To an English visitor, this is not a vision of the traditional countryside but more a series of warehouses - clean, immaculate offerings which on the surface bear no resemblance to the farms we see here.

We visited two pig farmers - Ole Haahr and Søren Søndergaard and both units were again the ultra-modern facilities which are so rare in the UK.

That's not to say they are better, in fact they do the same job as many of the larger units here and both men admit that like their colleagues the UK, farmers are still struggling to make ends meet regardless of their outward appearance.

But it's a very different kind of farming.

The focus was very much on the business and finance side of things as much as it was on practical farming and as I returned home, still no glimpse of Mr Obama by the way, I couldn't help thinking that no matter how different the system is farmers everywhere are still struggling with the same perennial problems - poor prices, lack of support from retailers and government and an ever-growing list of rules and regulations by which to adhere.