Bringing Food Through Customs

[muffinshanks]

i'm bringing some weetabix and grapes to eat in my hand carry bag. does anyone know if this is allowed?

i got stopped at Houston airport for bringing an apple from the plane and had to go through some serious security. i didnt even know it wasnt allowed. i'd probably like to avoid similar commotion at BK.

Thanks.

[sbk]

No, its usually not a problem entering Thailand. My nephew came to visit a few years ago, packed a banana in his carry on and forgot to eat it. Declared it to customs when he arrived. They looked at him like he was crazy when he went up and said "I have a banana". Customs guy answered "we have lots of bananas in Thailand"

[Noddy1]

I think most airlines now do not permit food to be brought onboard .

[sbk]

Really? I've brought snacks on the plane with me as recently as last August.

[lannarebirth]

I brought back 50kgs of specialty foods from America last year. I missed one connecting flight as the motherf****rs that are US Homeland Security brought in an extra team to carefully swab and "analyze" in their bomb sniffer, each package. After finally being released and making my way to Thailand the Thai Customs officer took one look and said "Aroi!", and I was on my way. Don't think you'll have any problems.

Edited April 11, 2009 by lannarebirth

[thedi]

No, its usually not a problem entering Thailand.

I second this:

I arrived three days ago, April, 9-th in BKK.

When passing customs (green line), a custom officer X-rayed my bags.

In it were 1.5 kg of cheese (different kinds), 3 kg chocolate and two spices (Tymian and Salbei) in pots (with soil, roots and all) and a laptop.

The custom officer didn't say a word but gave me an OK sign to go on.

Regards

Thedi

[syd barrett]

If you put food in checked baggage on an airplane does it spoil? Or are the luggage storage areas air-conditioned?

[sbk]

If you put food in checked baggage on an airplane does it spoil? Or are the luggage storage areas air-conditioned?

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qi...20140859AAbEGIO

[h90]

No, its usually not a problem entering Thailand. My nephew came to visit a few years ago, packed a banana in his carry on and forgot to eat it. Declared it to customs when he arrived. They looked at him like he was crazy when he went up and said "I have a banana". Customs guy answered "we have lots of bananas in Thailand"

I got a very strange look when I wanted to declare my laptop hahahaha.

I always found the customs in Thailand very relaxed.

[BigSnake]

Yeah bring on the food/fruit, give those hard working folks at Immigration a little snack, what the heck. Go ahead their day>

[tw25rw]

I always found the customs in Thailand very relaxed.

Me too. I wonder how drug smugglers get caught. Must be their demeanour.

[JimmyConway]

My son just bought me over 64 packets of Walkers square crisps, 6 boxes of Jaffa cakes, 5 boxes of walnut whips, 5 giant packets of custard creams and chocolate Bournebon creams, well he had to earn his flight fare!

[lioness]

I usually bring everything back, from Kangaroo Steak, Mrs Macs pie's to Gravox powder. With any meat & Pies I freeze all beforehand, wrap in newspaper and put into checked on luggage. It is still frozen 14 hours later.

I have also bought back various fruit trees, soil removed and roots wrapped in damp newspaper and then into plastic bags.

I always declare everything, working on the principle that it's better to be up front than have a problem later. Never had a problem, in fact on all but one trip they don't even bother looking. The trip they did look the man was astonished to learn that people do in fact eat Kangaroo, he asked me if it was Aroi, I say yes, you like test, he was delighted to receive as a gift ( not a bribe ) one pack of Kangaroo steak.

[Mason45]

Apart from the obvious drugs, weapons etc is there an official site that instructs people what's allowed/disallowed when passing through customs on arrival at Bangkok. I'm in Australia now, I've just purchased a NEW lap top would this come under scrutiny from customs officials on my return.

[PhilHarries]

If you put food in checked baggage on an airplane does it spoil? Or are the luggage storage areas air-conditioned?

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qi...20140859AAbEGIO

sbk's link doesn't work, for me anyway, but I think you'll find the cargo areas are kept roughly the same temperature as the passenger cabin otherwise they'd have about two inches of ice on the cabin floor by the time you start your descent into BKK.

Besides which don't they transport animals down below? When it's minus 54C outside nothing much would still breath unless they heated the air.

And if you think that's bad the outer skin of Concorde dropped to around minus 40 on the initial climb then ramped up to around plus 160 at cruise speed of mach 2. All this time those first class passengers had to be kept comfortable and the champagne cold but not too cold.

<Just thought I'd add this from today's UK Telegraph>

In scenes reminiscent of the 2006 cult film Snakes on a Plane, four of 12 Stimson's pythons escaped during a two and a half hour flight from Alice Springs to Melbourne.

On the ground in Melbourne, staff were unable to find the escapees among the luggage in the hold and the aircraft was removed from service.

#

Full story : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics...und-flight.html

Edited April 16, 2009 by PhilHarries

[fred2007]

You are lucky you comming to LOS just try to bring in any type of fruit, vegetables meat and so on in to OZ you will have a hard time at the custom and most propperly will get fined. But TIT

[Mr Conrad]

Mason45 wrote

Apart from the obvious drugs, weapons etc is there an official site that instructs people what's allowed/disallowed when passing through customs on arrival at Bangkok. I'm in Australia now, I've just purchased a NEW lap top would this come under scrutiny from customs officials on my return.

http://www.customs.go.th/Customs-Eng/indexEng.jsp

Try the link above hopefully your answers will be in there somewhere.

Best Regards

Mr Conrad

[Zpete]

If you put food in checked baggage on an airplane does it spoil? Or are the luggage storage areas air-conditioned?

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qi...20140859AAbEGIO

The above link and all Yahoo questions and replies are such garbage.

Read at your own risk.

Geeeeeeeeez, ppl are gullible.

[KLExpat]

Broadly speaking, most countries are OK with visitors bringing in prepared/cooked/processed food items. There may be particular bans from country to country (such as beef products into Japan during the mad cow craze) or protectionism (try bringing 5 kg of Thai rice into Malaysia some time) or religions/local issues, but again, world wide there are few issues. In short, do not worry too much about processed food stuffs.

Broadly speaking, most every country takes the importation of fresh produce and live plants very seriously. Do not take the poor training, bad attitude or lack of attention of a customs officer as an indication there is no rule against it. Fresh fruits are an issue due to pests. The USA is draconian on this as pests like the Mediterranean fruit fly can have an economic impact in the billions of dollars – and one piece of infected fruit is all it takes. US Customs even has a branch that specializes in stopping fruits in hand carry at gateway airports (that is that the beagles are for – not drugs). Plants/soil are also an issue do to things like root blight that the plants of the origin continent are immune to plants in the new continent have no immunity to – and one plant is all it takes. In short, do not take fresh produce or live plants across borders and you will avoid hassles.