Food and Customes - Travelling wth Baby/Toddler to United States

[G-Roger]

We will be travelling to the US in May with a 8 month old and and 24 month old. Has anybody had any experience with taking a Tin of formula into the country / will it get through customs. Also I will need to take extra food onboard with us, are we able to take our unopened food with us into the country.
I assume fruit and fresh food would need to discarded but what about the likes of mueslie bars, crackers etc

Any advice greatly appreciated

OOPS - just notice my spelling mistake in the header - my apologies

 

[djfuzz]

Hmm, I can only answer through experience, so perhaps someone else can relate any specific regulations - to be perfectly frank, I didn't actually think too much about this. Have on many occasions taken unopened processed foods (Tim Tams, chocolates, even Vegemite) to the US without any issue, so did not think twice about baby formula. Provided it doesn't contain a controlled substance, I imagine they probably wouldn't have an issue (you can always declare if in doubt). Cooked or raw foods, including fruit, on the other hand might be worth a second thought. But then again, there's plenty of both available in the US, so I'm not sure why you'd want to take them in.

Interestingly, the baby formula shortage has led to export controls out of HK / China (limit of two tins), so I'm not sure if these have spread anywhere else. Needless to say I was pretty shocked to discover this in HK in the first place, as I'd never considered baby formula to be such a precious commodity, but there you go.

 

[get me outta here]

If I am going to a condo, I take all sorts of food: home made muesli, home made yogurt, peanut butter etc etc. I always declare it and some times get wry lokks, but no one has ever been even a little bit interested in confiscating it.

Edit, the space that food took up is replaced w' shopping of course

 

[G-Roger]

I dont plan on taking excessive amounts in, just enough to get through untill me get to a supermarket.
Most babyfoods in tins/rafferty bags are fruit, has anybody had any problems getting a few of those tins in

 

[phily]

US Customs are far more lenient than Australia regards travellers bringing food into the country. Just Google: US Customs food restrictions, and you'll get a list of helpful websites. Whilst you need to declare all food, they allow you to import some cheeses, fresh fish, some fresh fruits and vegetables, however fresh meat and dairy products are prohibited. Naturally, only rely on US government websites, and you'll find all the details that you require.

 

[Pinkmoose]

We have done a fair bit of travelling with our 1 year old recently. We have never had any problems with food, but we have always taken sealed brand new containers onto the plane. So sealed baby food jars, ruskits, other snacks and freeze dried food were all fine and no-one ever gave us a problem.
Also request from your airline that you will require baby food on board and fruit. I found that on both Qantas and Cathay, they were very helpful and got us lots of fruit and snacks from business class for our little one.
Good Luck and don't forget the dummy or food for when you are taking off and landing.