sending food to the US via Post?

truedoom

Not sure if this is the right Forum, so please move if needed mods

My brother is in the states, and we were over to visit.

Not sure how it came up in conversation, but Wheelies and Waffles were mentions (the bags of crisps). One of the few things he misses about the country.

It's his birthday at the end of the month, and i was thinking of sending over a box of each (you know, like you'd get from a cash & carry, or wholesale shop).

What kind of restrictions are there with sending these to america? I'm guessing i can't just wrap them up, and post them over. will i have to pay customs duty or anything like that on them? Any kind of form to fill for it?

irish_goat

I posted food over before and just labelled it "candy". The post office will give you a little sticker to put on the box that you can fill in.

ProudDUB

Crisps, chocolate, sweets and general confectionery are all perfectly acceptable things to send to the US via An Post. You'll be given a customs form to fill out at the post office. Just put down candy or confectionery and you'll be fine. My family have been sending things for nearly 30 years & we've never had a problem. (It's when you try and send things like rasher and sausages, that you may run into difficulties. )

How sturdy is the cash & carry box that the crisps come in? Will it survive having loads of other far heavier boxes put on it during transit. Go to a post office, or a shipping or office materials store and see if they have sturdier boxes. It may not be bad idea to get one of those boxes, put some protective packing in & ship the crisps that way. It would be a shame for your to go to all that trouble, only for your brother to get bags of massively crushed crumbs on the other end.

truedoom

ProudDUB wrote: »

Crisps, chocolate, sweets and general confectionery are all perfectly acceptable things to send to the US via An Post. You'll be given a customs form to fill out at the post office. Just put down candy or confectionery and you'll be fine. My family have been sending things for nearly 30 years & we've never had a problem. (It's when you try and send things like rasher and sausages, that you may run into difficulties. )

How sturdy is the cash & carry box that the crisps come in? Will it survive having loads of other far heavier boxes put on it during transit. Go to a post office, or a shipping or office materials store and see if they have sturdier boxes. It may not be bad idea to get one of those boxes, put some protective packing in & ship the crisps that way. It would be a shame for your to go to all that trouble, only for your brother to get bags of massively crushed crumbs on the other end.

Spot on, boxes aren't the best, so will reinforce them. Cheers guys Wasn't expecting it to be this easy tbh You know those yanks and security.

ProudDUB

Duct tape is great for reinforcing boxes. It won't stop the box from completely collapsing if something heavier is put on top of it, but it will help the box to keep its shape and stop the contents from spilling out, if the edge or corners start to cave in, or tear, due to heavier boxes on top of it. Duct tape is incredibly strong stuff and is much, much better than regular tape or selotape. You can get a roll of it in a hardware shop for a fiver.

anne burnell

the duct tape is the way to go to reinforce the box... You can send a 20kg box to the states for E75 from the post office, so plenty of room for wheeies and chocolate

hfallada

Crisps are totally ok. Keoghs crisps were actually set up as the Farm wanted to send potatoes to the US. But uncooked potatoes are banned, so they choose to make crisps to send them to America