Not sure if this is the right spot to ask questions, as the sub info says nothing about them, but hopefully this is still considered relevant.
I am about to travel to my home country, Hungary, in a few weeks. Haven’t been back in years, and there’s one thing I really miss: horse sausage. This is a somewhat traditional dry sausage (closer to a salami really), made of 100% horse meat, from horses reared specifically this purpose.
Horse meat is not listed on any of the banned lists, and most articles related to the topic on gov.uk do specify that horses are NOT susceptible to FMD.
However most of the info related to the ban does begin with “you’re not allowed to import meat and dairy products” before specifying the banned species list - again, horse meat is NOT included on these lists.
Overall the bans are quite confusingly worded and aren’t straightforward.
There’s also mention of commercial documents needed - but only for non-human-consumption meat products (e.g. dog food).
So my question is, ultimately, can I bring 3-4kg of this sausage into the country, and if yes, what paperwork would I need? Most EU certifications are out of the question as these sausages are made by small local farms who don’t really label or package the products much since it’s not meant for export. Some more commercial options do have the label, but only in Hungarian.
I have sent a message to gov.uk with the relevant page linked however I’m yet to hear back and given I’m about to travel… I’d like to have some definitive answers before I get some £50-60 worth of meat confiscated at the airport.
Can’t you just post it?
I don’t see how that would get around the issue of properly identifying the meat. Any kind of import, regardless of its form, is subject to these bans.
…the idea of posting it was to circumnavigate the need to declare it
It would still need to be declared.
Oh for fucks sake, does everything have to be explained to the max on here?
If OP is wanting to post meat back without the hassle of customs then why on earth would they declare it?
The idea is that OP posts it to the UK without telling anyone the true contents of the parcel so they can enjoy lovely meat when they return…
Or enjoy a nice hefty fine for badly declared goods when it goes through a scanner and the “clothes and stuff” gets flagged for being meat products.
Oh and also get the meat confiscated and destroyed.
Brilliant plan, genius.
People have been posting stuff for years, how do you think the physical side of the entire dark net marketplaces operate?
Plus it’s Christmas time, there’s a massive influx of post pretty much worldwide - do you think they’ve got time to scan every single packet that’s dispatched?
But yeah, wait for a response of gov.uk