'Reimporting French Products into France from UK' ?

[Chris Hax]

We are regular long-stay winter visitors to France as we have a place there. While there is plenty of clear guidance on foods not to be brought into France, I am wondering if certain French products, bought in the UK, would be allowable to customs for 'reimport' into France from the UK. I am thinking of products like AOC cheeses, President butter, French fish soups. We are also able to order Picard surgele and Bonne Maman products from Ocado.

Similarly I suppose Italian or German brands. Provided they are produced in the EU, the idea is that they cannot be a problem (in theory!)

Anyone know how I can find this out reliably....they're not covered on the normal customs sites.

 

[anotherbanana]

Chris, may I ask why one would want to reimport French products which are, largely, freely available in France?

[Chris Hax]

We will be for a long stay and we are shielding. We bleach and leave all goods for 72 hours. We are REALLY careful, as high vulnerability. We eat a lot of French food even in England

Can someone please answer the question...there must be an email address for the right office, or something...

 

[alittlebitfrench]

One of the main reasons I go to the UK now is to eat.

It would be cheaper to learn how to cook Chris.

Or...become a veggie like me.

Just saying.

There is nothing in a French supermarket that I would even contemplate taking to the UK.

 

Uk supermarkets rock. 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 15, 2021 by alittlebitfrench

[EuroTr@sh]

1 hour ago, Chris Hax said:

Can someone please answer the question...there must be an email address for the right office, or something...

 

It's rather an unusual question and one to which quite possibly nobody in expatforumland knows the answer. Not really a situation that Brits living permanently in France are ever likely to have found themselves in, is it. You may even be the very first person to have asked this question! Please come back and share the answer when you have found out, it would be interesting to know.

I assume you know about Leclerc Drive? You can order online then go collect your order with virtually no human contact. It's how lots of people preferred to shop in the early days of Covid. Far lower risk there, than in making the journey from the UK to France, I would have thought...

[Chris Hax]

The Leclerc sounds interesting, but Nice does not have a good Leclerc I think. I have seen pick up at shop for Monoprix, and Picard Surgele supposedly delivers 'a domicile', but being in a flat in Nice I think there are less delivery options than in a house (due to the entry doors I guess)

But yes, we try not to have human contact if possible !  2 years of 'house arrest' and finally we need to fix our flat, and escape another bleak British winter.

 

 

[Loiseau]

I think French supermarkets more tend to provide a pick-up service (sometimes misleadingly called "Drive"), rather than offering the doorstep delivery service we are used to in the UK.

But that’s probably an easier option for flat-dwellers, as long as you have access to a car.

[Teapot1]

We bought over all sorts of food from the UK to France as we were also on an ectended stay, if we got stopped and they confiscated them so be it as we would have needed to bin them anyway.

No one cared, they were only interested on passport stamping and covid paperwork.

Obviously we didnt mention the food because that would have been daft, I say just go for it, 3 different families all did the same in our group no one stopped or questioned.

How are you travelling? If you are shielding it must be the tunnel as we did.

[Chris Hax]

Yup we are tunnelling !!! So we have a mini fridge, planned to have Epoisses, Morbier and President butter ! Also looking into Bonne Maman.

We might have to make do with Baby Milk Powder for a few days, though we don't have babies so that's a bit of a problem. Let's hope that the douaniers have better things to do.

I am still seeking an official response - I found a French website but wonder if they will bother. Nice to have a piece of paper to wave back at them if stopped though...

The basic idea is that we have 3 or 4 days food with us so that we can organise ourselves before ordering from a supermarket. 

 

[Teapot1]

I am sure you will find French shops a lot safer and less intimidating than the UK. Everyone wears a mask nothing like that in the UK where its a free for all and 95% never wear a mask or keep their distance. 

[Chris Hax]

So I did get the official customs response which is as senseless as most post-Brexit stuff. In essence the second a product leaves the EU is ceases to be an acceptable product to re-enter the EU. Pasted below is the essentially political response, nothing to do with food chain safety at all !

En réponse à votre courriel, je vous informe que les marchandises qui sont mises à consommation dans un pays tiers à l'Union européenne perdent leur statut communautaire une fois exportées hors l'UE, même si elles ont l'origine européenne. 

Je vous informe que l'importation dans les bagages des voyageurs de produits d'animaux en provenance de pays tiers à l'Union européenne est possible dans les conditions définies par le règlement d'exécution (UE) n°2019/2122 modifié.

 

 

 

 

[Teapot1]

Glad it was all worth it.

[EuroTr@sh]

I thought that might be what they would say. It's like these pigs that UK pig farmers are having to send to the Netherlands for butchering because there is a butcher shortage in England, I think I read that a British pig that has been slaughtered and butchered in the EU and sent back to the UK as pork joints, can't be sold as British pork. 

Of course it's political, trade agreements are. You gotta ? Brexit.

I guess either you give it a shot on the basis you're very unlikely to be checked, or you could place an order with Leclerc Drive or suchlike on your drive down and pick it up en route. Or even put your order in from Folkestone with Drive in Calais, and load it up as soon as you arrive in France. That way it's sorted.

[ssomon]

If you search the document they mention for "produits animaux" you will see that it seems you can ship or carry your baggage a small quantity for personal consumption, .

[Chris Hax]

Yes that's very woolly indeed, and the guidance documents are rubbish on that point, and also on eggs and egg products.

If you look at the actual document its written like an endless mobius band, saying first NO MEAT, and then personal 2kg allowance combined across all these categories, which in their detail actually exclude most normal meat products, and only include meat-based supplements for consumption and medicinal dog food. Unless of course you are from Faroe Islands or wherever....!

In fact there are so many multiple sources for the customs information, that it makes the problems worse. The laughable fact is that the UK and EU are each issuing different interpretations of the same issue.

All of which makes me want to have a meat-feast-barbecue before I travel, consume 15 kg each, and so never want meat again...

[Loiseau]

Chris, do you manage to get to Nice in a day from the UK?

if you have an overnight stop somewhere, could you not go into a small local alimentation to at least buy some milk, bread, cold ham etc to start you off when you arrive? Everyone will be masked, as mentioned above.