Can you eat food refused by quarantine by Australian border control?
- By
- Aparna Patel
- |
- 20 Jul, 2023
- |
No, you can’t.
In the past (pre-Covid), I’ve applied for various jobs at Australian airports, and when I applied for a job as an aircraft cleaner, I was told in no uncertain terms by the person interviewing me that eating or drinking any items left on the plane was strictly forbidden by Australian Customs, as they hadn’t passed through Customs, so doing so would count as a breach of quarantine. Anyone who did so would face a fine of thousands of dollars, months of jail time, or both. This is something that they had personally seen happen, after one cleaner opened and drank a can of soda that had been left on the plane.
Obviously this is a question that could have very different answers depending on the specific country.
For your specific example of Australia, the official list of actions that can be taken for refused items are :
- pay for the item to be treated to make it safe (for example fumigation, irradiation)
- store the item at the airport for collection when you leave Australia
- re–export the item or
- have the item destroyed by AQIS.
So thus, no, eating the item is not an option – at least, not officially…
Unless there’s something very special about them, importing chocolates into Australia is not a problem – just remember that you DO still need to declare them under the “Food” question.
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