Three food trades are on Denmark's Positive List — chefs, retail butchers and craft bakers — and two large employers of foreign labour elsewhere in Europe are not: slaughterhouses and industrial bakeries. This page draws that line, sets out the pay benchmark, and shows how we test a chef or a butcher before you meet them.
Chefs (512000), retail butchers (751110) and bakers other than industrial bakers (751200) are on the Positive List for Skilled Work from 1 July 2026, together with food inspection technicians. Meat-processing and slaughterhouse operatives, industrial bakers, kitchen assistants and waiters are not; a Danish slaughterhouse cannot recruit Filipino operatives on the list, and a restaurant can recruit its chefs but not its service staff. The pay benchmark is SIRI's wage statistics for the code and experience band.
The Positive List for Skilled Work is Denmark's route for vocational occupations in shortage: updated on 1 January and 1 July, 63 job titles since 1 July 2026, no labour-market test. Four conditions decide the case. The job must be on the list under its DISCO-08 code. Pay and terms must correspond to Danish standards — SIRI assesses the salary against Statistics Denmark wage statistics for the occupation and experience level, counting only cash salary, labour-market pension and holiday allowance, and a collective agreement does not by itself prove the point. The salary must be paid into a Danish bank account in the worker's name within 180 days of the permit. And the employer must have met its apprentice-training obligations under Læreplads-AUB. The fee is DKK 6,810, biometrics are recorded within 14 days of submission (in Manila through VFS, with the Embassy's separate fee of DKK 1,725), the standard processing time is three months, the permit follows the contract up to four years and is tied to the job and the employer, and nobody starts work before it is granted.
Chefs cook to your menu at our Makati kitchen, timed and plated, tasted by your chef on site or by a chef you nominate; butchers break a primal and produce retail cuts to your specification with yield and hygiene scored; bakers produce to your product list. Your head chef or master butcher watches live and interviews the same day. Candidates come from hotel, cruise and Gulf kitchens, from Philippine meat shops and bakeries, with TESDA Cookery, Bread and Pastry and Slaughtering and Meat Processing certificates.
Recruitment runs through our own DMW-licensed agency, Prime Search Manpower Agency Inc. in Makati (licence DMW-027-LB-11182024): your company is accredited at the Migrant Workers Office in London, which has jurisdiction for the Nordic countries, the job order is registered with the DMW, and every worker leaves Manila with a verified contract, medical clearance, pre-departure orientation and an Overseas Employment Certificate. Recruitment follows the employer-pays principle: no applicant pays for an interview, a trade test or a place on a shortlist. Your company is the employer from day one; we never employ or lease the workers.
Everything here is subject to the Danish Aliens Act and SIRI's practice in force, the Positive Lists as updated on 1 January and 1 July, Danish collective agreements and wage statistics, and Philippine DMW rules.
Not on the Positive List — meat-processing operatives are not listed; only retail butchers (751110) are. Other schemes require the DKK 552,000 or DKK 446,000 pay limits.
Yes — chefs (512000) are on the Positive List for Skilled Work from 1 July 2026; waiters and kitchen assistants are not.
Yes — at our Makati kitchen, with tasting by your chef on site or a chef you nominate.
General information for employers, not legal or migration advice. Rules change; we re-verify before each hire.