Taking fresh food to France

Vennwood

Vennwood

Joined
Nov 15, 2007
Posts
241
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Location
Nottinghamshire, UK
Funster No
849
MH
A Class
Exp
20+ but 30+ as a tugger
I'm sure this is an old topic but wondered if anyone has any updates. When we travelled to France last October we were very careful not to take any fresh meat or dairy products following the new BREXIT rules. When we passed through customs we were waved through and reflected that we might have either been lucky (surely they wouldn't check every camper) and not been selected OR the French really weren;t interested in enforcing silly rules and impounding a little bit of meat from a Brit camper. What experiences have recent traveller had?
 
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My take on it is they aren’t searching in vans specifically because of Covid. However i suspect that will change this year. I don’t think they give a damn about two packs of streaky and a pack of Richmond’s finest - but they do want to stop wholesale smuggling and meat for sale. So I suspect they will keep checking occasionally and make a song and a dance about it.
 
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OldCodger said:
My take on it is they aren’t searching in vans specifically because of Covid. However i suspect that will change this year. I don’t think they give a damn about two packs of streaky and a pack of Richmond’s finest - but they do want to stop wholesale smuggling and meat for sale. So I suspect they will keep checking occasionally and make a song and a dance about it.
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Totally agree you could very well be right - with so much covid around I guess they would want to keep clear.
Is this what other travellers have experienced?
 
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We travelled a couple of weeks ago via the tunnel and no checks were made at all, only asked if gas was turned off 👍
 
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We traveled via tunnel last November and no checks on food either way.
Taking the ferry from Newhaven this week so wondering if they may be a bit more thorough ..??

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Came over 4 weeks ago only thing checked was passports, dogs ahc and gas off. This was the tunnel.
 
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No checks on the tunnel in either direction apart from Gas, however in France UK Borderforce do ask where you have come from and have you stopped enroute as we had been shopping in Calais we were referred to some French gendarmes parked in the carpark in-front and had to open the garage and they came aboard checking the beds, bathroom and under the seats etc but were purely looking for stowaways which they explained.
 
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orridge said:
No checks on the tunnel in either direction apart from Gas, however in France UK Borderforce do ask where you have come from and have you stopped enroute as we had been shopping in Calais we were referred to some French gendarmes parked in the carpark in-front and had to open the garage and they came aboard checking the beds, bathroom and under the seats etc but were purely looking for stowaways which they explained.
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Better tidy the van up before I get to the tunnel tomorow then 🤣🤣

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We must look dodgy because we had the UK border force in the van for all 3 return crossings last year but they aren't interested when going out to France (except gas being turned off). Presumably looking for refugees rather than smuggling sausages.
 
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sylvester1954 said:
We traveled via tunnel last November and no checks on food either way.
Taking the ferry from Newhaven this week so wondering if they may be a bit more thorough ..??
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Crossed over via the channel ferry from Newhaven earlier this week and no checks on food etc..it wasn't particularly busy either.
 
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We came back via the tunnel last week and other than the gas the only thing they checked was in our bathroom and under the beds for stowaways. On the way out it was only the gas checked.
 
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Have travelled across to Europe via France three times since the stupid food rules came in. Each time we diligently followed the rules but at no time did ANYONE check. I won’t bother next time.

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Vennwood said:
I'm sure this is an old topic but wondered if anyone has any updates. When we travelled to France last October we were very careful not to take any fresh meat or dairy products following the new BREXIT rules. When we passed through customs we were waved through and reflected that we might have either been lucky (surely they wouldn't check every camper) and not been selected OR the French really weren;t interested in enforcing silly rules and impounding a little bit of meat from a Brit camper. What experiences have recent traveller had?
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We’ve not been to France since 2019, but as we have an excellent local butcher who makes his own delicious sausages, (really don’t like French sausages) burgers, and other meat, we’ve always taken some with us vacuum packed, as well as dairy and cheese. Yes, cheese. I love a lot of the French cheeses, but always have to have some cheddar. Never had a problem.
 
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We took a bag of Creme Eggs, Tunnock's Teacakes, Caramel Wafers, Wispa's and Flakes to my son and his family in Paris. The grandchildren had never had a Creme Egg before, their faces were a picture!
 
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On a slightly different note We walked across from La Linnea to Gibralter and went to Morrisons for some groceries, on the way back the Spanish border control took it all off us.
 
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bexleyjohn said:
I don’t think The food issue is related to Covid. It’s in retaliation to Brexit.
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No it's not, they are simply applying the rules which now apply to us as a third party nation, the rules which we negotiated and supported when we were a member and that we understood would apply to us when when we were no longer a member. Which part of that are you struggling to understand?
 
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As an earlier funster mentioned it may be that they weren't checking for food because of Covid - i.e they didn't fancy entering the MH in case they caught it. Maybe now the rules are relaxed (even though Covid is still around) they may start entering vans more often. I hope not.

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Vennwood said:
As an earlier funster mentioned it may be that they weren't checking for food because of Covid - i.e they didn't fancy entering the MH in case they caught it. Maybe now the rules are relaxed (even though Covid is still around) they may start entering vans more often. I hope not.
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Chances are they will enter your van coming back from France but they are only looking for illegal extra passengers the french guards were polite, wearing masks and in and out in a few moments.

No one cares about a few slices of bacon or that cheese in the fridge apart from people on here and facebook ;-)
 
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Just travelled on the DFDS ferry from Newcastle to Amsterdam. Customs came in but only looked in the wardrobe , just as well as we had packed the fridge with Lidl’s finest and 4 large bars of dairy milk for our trip to Norway , as it’s sooo expensive here
 
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