Bringing food into Australia
Replies: 45 - Last Post: Aug 16, 2012 2:34 AM Last Post By: GeoffW
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Really, not very much at all is allowed in. I wouldn't even bother (although I did take Prawn Cocktail crisps in for my daughter last year - no problem!)Never consider not declaring stuff for if they find it, you will be fined (about $200). And then they will go through the rest of your luggage with a fine tooth comb and you could be delayed for hours.
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declare anything and everything that is food/edible.
Agree. This includes chocolate, dried fruit, dried herbs etc. The disembarkation card you fill in before landing will list pretty much what you have to declare but if you have any food - DECLARE !What you definitely CAN NOT take into Australia - bananas (fresh, dried or any other way). Dairy products including powder.
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Yes, declare everything. Australia still has in place archaic customs statutes that bars entry to menstruating women. Plan around it or deny everything as I really don't know how they could possibly police it. HTH. It's all on their website. You just had to look.9
This is the incoming passenger card .As you can see, it asks if you to declare 'all food'. The penalties for false declaration are high. AQIS will decide if you can bring it in or not. Usually anything home made is a no no.
AQIS not only have sniffer dogs, but pretty sophisticated x-ray equipment to detect food products. Quarantine is taken very seriously and AQIS are very vigilant.
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I recommend you do not bring any food into Australia. Apart from the act that you can buy most things here, the risk of being fined is significant if you fail to declare something.14
We flew back from NZ a couple of years ago, and declared two frozen lamb meals we bought in a supermarket in Auckland, as we were getting in very late and there was no food in the house, and we done everything right, and the customs guy took them away from us!We knew that all chicken products are banned, so we were very careful not to buy any product that contained chicken, it said plainly that it was Rogan Josh meal, made from Lamb, and it said in the small print on the back what food it contained, and there was no mention of any chicken.
But the customs guy took them of us all the same, saying over and over in parrot fashion 'That they could contain chicken', we were so exasperated in trying to tell him that no where on the labelling it said so, but countless times in trying to exlpain this to him was proved fruitless, and in the end we gave up, it was like trying to have an objective conversation about your wife to your mother in law.
