Problems with HK customs with food in shipping container

[Clekittybites]

Hi everyone.
We are a couple from australia and moving to Hong Kong son. Conroy and Toll are our moving companies assisting with the move. They have advised that they strong discourage us having any foods such as non perishable milk powder, tea bags, biscuits, coconut oil, assorted sauces etc in our shipping container. If we choose to have these foodstuffs into our container then they said we will run into delays and will be very expensive as customs will charge us a fee for the search. However reading into the forums it seems a lot of expats have chosen to put food into their container. Can anyone share their experience? I'm waiting on Conroy to advise what the customs charge is.
thanks in advance!

[jimbo]

Bring it with you as checked in luggage.

How much exactly are you wanting to bring?

[HK_Katherine]

I emptied the contents of my kitchen into the container and had no issues at all. Aussies expect the whole world to worry about food like they do!

[Elegiaque]

I think we were told similar things when we came from the UK, but we had recently purchased cans of olive oil from Greece. Anyway, we packed the things in boxes, and that got packed in boxes, and no one knew (or cared?) what was inside... The packers just did the packing and didn't ask any questions.

For smaller things, though, I agree you should just pack it in your luggage.

Is there a possible issue with rats getting inside the containers and eating through boxes?

[imparanoic]

from an insurance point of view, a damages or liquid ingression as result of food stuff ( within the same carton) will result in the claim for other items within the same carton a straight decline.

Vermin is also a straight decline as well.

also there is a chance of fumigation of the entire container and the personal effects within the container, which may result the food inedible, probably skippy meat may trickier to find, but ever so often it can be purchased in HK

Most food products can be purchased in HK, some are pricey, some are reasonable

[imparanoic]

I think we were told similar things when we came from the UK, but we had recently purchased cans of olive oil from Greece. Anyway, we packed the things in boxes, and that got packed in boxes, and no one knew (or cared?) what was inside... The packers just did the packing and didn't ask any questions.

For smaller things, though, I agree you should just pack it in your luggage.

Is there a possible issue with rats getting inside the containers and eating through boxes?

Most insurance policy will decline " PBO" - packed by owners cartons as part of proposed exclusions

[bravizzel]

We shipped 50 cans of baby formula recently (our child has special dietary requirements) in our cargo load. I accompanied the removalists to pick up our cargo load and during pickup, HK customs asked us to open a random selection of boxes, some of which contained baby formula. They didn't care at all about the baby formula when they saw it, just waved us through.

[jayinhongkong]

We shipped 50 cans of baby formula recently (our child has special dietary requirements) in our cargo load. I accompanied the removalists to pick up our cargo load and during pickup, HK customs asked us to open a random selection of boxes, some of which contained baby formula. They didn't care at all about the baby formula when they saw it, just waved us through.

I think the issue is drug trafficking...drugs show up as organic, just like food, and it takes a lot of time and manpower to inspect sealed food containers. Baby formula or protein powder containers could be packed with any kind of powder and would look exactly the same on X-Ray. If cleaned off well, even an ion scan wouldn't pick up anything I don't think.

Interesting read:

http://www.nyclu.org/content/letter-...se-cited-nyclu