Bringing Food/Meat Through Customs: Any Issues?

[Sam Drucker]

I'm going to be returning to Thailand soon (at Suvarnabhumi), and I'd like to bring (as checked baggage) a cooler with some frozen meats (beef and turkey). I'm thinking I'll have about 5 to 8 kg, all commercially packaged and purchased at a super market in the USA. These items will be for my personal use.

Does anybody know if customs would have any issue with this? I am assuming I just want to go through the red line and declare that I have them, and maybe I have to pay some duty? How about any other kinds of farang foods being brought in?

I haven't been able to find any detailed information about this when searching Thai customs websites. Anybody in the know on this?

[Erich]

I think that you may have serious problems at the customs.

Open the following link to understand why :

[hkt83100]

You will have the same problem like trying to bring food into the USA. You are not allowed to.

[Sam Drucker]

Here's what happened:

To try to clarify any rules and procedures on bringing meat into Thailand, prior to the trip I tried numerous means to find out, including posting here to Thaivisa to see if anyone else had previous experience bringing food or meat into Thailand; checking the Thai Customs website and actually contacting them by email (they did not reply); asking a Thai friend whose business is involved in import of non-food goods to Thailand if she had any resources that could answer the question. She came back with an answer from her contact that "1-2 kg should not be a problem." That answer struck me as more of an opinion than coming from any definitive rules. As I had intended to bring about 6 kg. with me, I decided to go ahead with this amount. It seemed I should at least be able to bring some of it in, if not all of it.

I arrived at Suvarnabhumi, prepared to go to Red Lane customs and inquire as to what I needed to declare, and how to do so? As I waited for my baggage, I observed no staff at the red lane. After getting all of my baggage, I headed for the green lane, and stopped to ask an official about bringing in meat, and if I needed to go to the red lane? The meat was in a 40 liter cooler. He looked at the cooler, asked how much I had, and when I replied 6 kg, he said "Okay" and waved me through without any further comment or inspection.

Comments on previous replies:

The link to the story about Dengue Fever and Cholera refers to food exports, not imports.

Regarding not being allowed to bring in food to Thailand: This comment just does not seem to be true.

[tartempion]

Thanks for your update Sam.

I always bring foods 2x year in my luggage: cheese, charcuterie, jams, chocolate around 40kgs, always walk through green without ever being stopped. I do see some people having their bags X-rayed lately, but I don't worry really.

[electau]

Do a google search of "quarantine requirements for Thailand"

Preserved foods appear to be exempt.

[Sam Drucker]

Thanks for your update Sam.

I always bring foods 2x year in my luggage: cheese, charcuterie, jams, chocolate around 40kgs, always walk through green without ever being stopped. I do see some people having their bags X-rayed lately, but I don't worry really.

I'm curious about the logistics of what you said above.

1 How are you packing? Is this checked airline baggage? How many bags? What type of bag/container? (I used a common 40 liter insulated cooler, for example.)

2 Do you have to keep your goods chilled or frozen? If so, how are you doing that?

3 Where are you traveling from, and what's your total travel time from pack to unpack?

I really had to plan my trip carefully and prepare things ahead of time, because of the need for keeping the meat frozen and the length of time (about 32 hours pack to unpack) coming from the central USA.

[tartempion]

I hold gold on etihad and can check in 40kgs without problems.

I leaver Brussles around 8 am and arrive Udon Thani 12am local, thus 23h travel time.

I bring fresh, unfrozen.

Wrap fresh in aluminum paper then pack in small carton boxes, travel October and May, "fresh season" in Belgium, guess all stay relatively cool until bags reach Bangkok. Have connecting flight to Udon Thani max 3h later.

Pack two hard suitcases max 20 kgs each.

Fly Thai domestic business class to avoid weight problems at check in. Extra 1.200 baht well worth it.

Hope this clarifies a few things.

[Sam Drucker]

I hold gold on etihad and can check in 40kgs without problems.

I leaver Brussles around 8 am and arrive Udon Thani 12am local, thus 23h travel time.

I bring fresh, unfrozen.

Wrap fresh in aluminum paper then pack in small carton boxes, travel October and May, "fresh season" in Belgium, guess all stay relatively cool until bags reach Bangkok. Have connecting flight to Udon Thani max 3h later.

Pack two hard suitcases max 20 kgs each.

Fly Thai domestic business class to avoid weight problems at check in. Extra 1.200 baht well worth it.

Hope this clarifies a few things.

Yes, that clarifies . . . I was just curious.

I brought in mainly steaks (purchased already frozen) and some turkey. The steaks are boxed and individually sealed, and go on sale a few times a year at over 40% off, so it was a good time for me to load up and bring some over here. Since I intend to use these meats over the course of several months, I wanted to keep them frozen throughout the journey.

The obvious answer for me was to use dry ice for the trip. But the airlines have low limits for dry ice (about 2 kg.) and it must be declared, labeled, etc. The dry ice limit was just way too low for what I needed for the amount of meat I was carrying and the duration of my trip.

I ended up getting dry ice a few days before travel to hard freeze the meats. I also put a bunch of "blue ice" packets in with the dry ice, to get them hard frozen too. Before going to the airport I removed all my dry ice, leaving just the meat and blue ice, both frozen at a temperature somewhere around -40°C. I wrapped the cooler with stretch film to keep it closed tightly. The hope was that between the mass of meat that was hard frozen, and the blue ice with it, the temperature rise would be slowed enough so that it was all still frozen when I got to Bangkok. It seemed to work, surviving a 1 hour connection in Phoenix (where the temperature was +40°C), a 5 hour connection at Los Angeles (with a milder temp of +20°C) and a 16+ hour nonstop to Bangkok.

I cooked up a few steaks last week on the grill, and it was worth the effort to get them here.

[lomatopo]

I wrapped the cooler with stretch film to keep it closed tightly.

I'm surprised TSA didn't open your cooler. You should expect they will, maybe ~ 25% of the time. They leave a card inside your box, and don't re-seal it very well, in my experience. I pack a 14" cube inside a 16" cube each trip (~ 6 times/year), and they open it about half the time. I bring back all sorts of things but never meat or other perishables although I'd like to (cheese).

[Sam Drucker]

I wrapped the cooler with stretch film to keep it closed tightly.

I'm surprised TSA didn't open your cooler. You should expect they will, maybe ~ 25% of the time. They leave a card inside your box, and don't re-seal it very well, in my experience. I pack a 14" cube inside a 16" cube each trip (~ 6 times/year), and they open it about half the time. I bring back all sorts of things but never meat or other perishables although I'd like to (cheese).

Yeah, I was lucky on that one, although if opened for inspection, it really just depends on who you get for an agent. I had a motorcycle muffler and exhaust pipe a year ago that I was checking as baggage, and it took a significant amount of time to cut, tape, and fabricate a box to put this thing in. I used a lot of shipping tape and bubble pack, and TSA wanted to open the thing and look inside (At MSP where this occurred, the TSA checked baggage inspection is still exposed and in a public area next to the airline counters, so you can hang around and watch them inspecting your bag if you want to.) The guy that inspected mine had poor people skills, but he did do a great job repacking the muffler, and used stretch film to secure the outside of the box. I was watching and even learned the trick of making "handles" for picking up the box from watching him re-wrap it.

[tartempion]

I cooked up a few steaks last week on the grill, and it was worth the effort to get them here.

sure, for me it's Belgian chocolates and stinking French cheese.

[lazygourmet]

I am off to Belgium, for a couple of days, next month.

As usual, I will bring back a suitcase full of various delicatessen.... I am doing this, on a regular basis, for the last ten years, here in Thailand... And previously in Indonesia...

Most of the time, I get stopped at the airport, on the way back, open the suitcase full of of food and a big smile from the officer while checking.

Never had any problem at all...