Re 'smuggling' food on planes

[Guest guest]

" I can't tell you about the rest of the world, but I do know that bringing food into Australia, as someone suggested earlier, is very problematic. We have _very_ strict quarantine laws. I know someone who had dried banana chips confiscated when they came into Australia from the US. "

 

 

Hello everyone,

 

I can vouch for this. I am an Australian now living in Holland. before deciding to move here permanently I came for a 3 month holiday. When I returned to Australia at the end of the three months my hand baggage was 'gone over' at the airport by a sniffer dog who showed considerable interest in what he found. It turns out that I had used the bag to shop for fruit and vegetables about 3 days earlier and the dog picked up the lingering scent of a mango I had bought then. The mango was long gone but the dog still detected its presence. The strict Australian quarantine laws are to protect the country's primary industry from imported plant and animal diseases which could wreak havoc if they took hold in the country. It is ABSOLUTELY no joke that when planes arrive in Australia someone from the Department of Agriculture walks down the aisle spraying from two cans of some sort of pesticide while all the passengers are still sitting in their seats.

 

Forgive me if I am a bit confused though. Was the original question about taking food from one country to another? I thought that the subject was raised because someone wanted to know if they could take food with them to eat during the flight in case the 'special' meal they had ordered was either unavailable or unsuitable. After a recent experience flying to Malta with a group of 16 vegetarians we have decided to always take a filled bread roll with us on future flights as a sort of 'insurance policy'. If we don't need to eat it during the flight we would be happy to dispose of it at the other end of the flight if required. Our group, all of whom booked at the same time with the same travel agent, received 11 vegetarian meals instead of 16 even though all our tickets showed that we had booked vegetarian meals. On the outward flight the 5 people who had missed out on their meals were given forms to fill in to ensure that the vegetarian meals would be available on the return flight. Two days before the return trip we rang the airline to confirm that vegetarian meals had been ordered. All was well! For backup one of our Maltese friends rang a cousin who works for the airline - again confirmed. When my husband and I checked in we asked - all under control. When we got to the steps of the plane the stewardess actually looked at our tickets and said 'you have both ordered vegetarian meals so we'll make sure you receive them this time'. My husband and I had barely sat down when we were approached by the purser who asked us how many vegetarian meals had been ordered in our name. We told him 'two' and he said that they only had record of one being ordered but that we could 'eat the rice'. As the rice was coated in a sauce containing chicken we tried to explain to him that it wasn't acceptable to us. What did we get to eat? One of the crew felt sorry for us and gave us an apple and a banana she had brought with her from home