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Personal imports: Publicity

Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) personal food imports campaign ‘Don’t break the law, check the rules before you travel'

10 January 2008 saw the re-launch of the Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) personal food imports campaign ‘Don’t break the law, check the rules before you travel’ which continues to raise awareness of the personal food import rules. The re-launch included media interviews with the Minister for Food and Farming, Lord Rooker, and journalists from: television channels BEN TV and OBE, which reach the African and Caribbean communities in the United Kingdom (UK); Channel S which reaches Bangladeshi audiences; and an interview with the newspaper Sing Tao, which is aimed at readers from the Chinese community.

This new campaign - run by Defra together with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and the Food Standards Agency (FSA) - reminds people that it is illegal to bring meat and dairy products for personal use back into the UK from countries outside the European Union (EU). There are also restrictions on bringing back other food products, including fish, shellfish, honey, eggs and certain types of fruits and vegetables.

The campaign’s aims are to:

  1. Reduce the amount of illegal food brought into the UK from travellers arriving from countries outside the EU.
  1. Increase awareness of the rules and regulations that are in place to restrict personal food imports amongst our target audiences.
  1. Encourage people to change their behaviour so that they don’t bring in illegal food products.

The campaign is focussed on three key messages:

  1. Why the personal food imports laws and regulations exist – to prevent the entry of animal and plant diseases into the UK.
  1. The implications of breaking the law – illegal products will be seized and destroyed by customs, you will face delays, and you could face prosecution or a fine.
  1. Availability in the UK – the campaign seeks to emphasise that most of the illegal products that are being brought in are available in the UK, so there’s no need to take the risk.

This campaign is a continuation of a combined Defra and HMRC ‘If In Doubt, Leave It Out!’ campaign, which was also aimed at BME audiences, and was launched on 25 October 2004.

Research shows that for some cultures bringing back food is a longstanding tradition. This is reflected by seizure rates, which show that most illegal food products are seized from people travelling from certain countries. Due to this the target audiences for this campaign are Black African (predominantly from Ghana and Nigeria), Bangladeshi, Black Caribbean, Chinese, Middle Eastern, Indian, Pakistani and Turkish.

The cross-media campaign includes a public information film, radio and print advertising across both ethnic minority and mainstream media. Posters and leaflets will be available in English, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Gujarati, Hindi, Punjabi, Turkish and Urdu.

The campaign includes significant community outreach activity with a team of trained staff who will visit key locations across the country, including community supermarkets, places of worship and shopping centres to explain the campaign’s key messages. The outreach team will visit over 30 locations around the country, including London, Birmingham, Bradford, Liverpool, Oldham, Manchester and Newcastle. 

We have timed our activity so that it coincides with popular times for travelling such as Chinese New Year, Easter and half-term holidays.

Defra Public Information film (TV filler) about personal food and plant imports

This is our current TV filler which is being shown across the UK on selected terrestrial, cable and satellite channels.

Defra advice on personal food and plant imports into the UK to reduce the risk of exotic animal diseases, plant pests and diseases entering the country and then threatening our public health, livestock, agriculture and horticultural industries and the environment. Produced as part of the Government's 'If In Doubt, Leave It Out!' campaign.

Defra Advert providing advice about personal food imports (Nigerian Version)

Defra advice on personal food imports into the UK to reduce the risk of exotic animal diseases entering the country and then threatening our public health, livestock, agriculture industry and the environment. Produced as part of the Government's 'Don't break the law, check the rules before you travel' campaign.

This will be aired on BEN TV and OBE, which reach the African community in the UK.
Defra Advert providing advice about personal food imports (Bengali Version)

Defra advice on personal food imports into the UK to reduce the risk of exotic animal diseases entering the country and then threatening our public health, livestock, agriculture industry and the environment. Produced as part of the Government's 'Don't break the law, check the rules before you travel' campaign.

This will be aired on Channel S which reaches the Bangladeshi community in the UK.

Leaflets

Defra

New leaflets produced for the re-launch of the BME personal food imports campaign will be available shortly.

HMRC

Posters

The following posters are available in Adobe Acrobat Adobe PDF logo format. Further information is available on our Help page about downloading or reading Adobe Acrobat Adobe PDF logo documents.

Defra posters produced for the re-launch of the BME personal food imports campaign are now available:

 

Further information

Page last modified: April 22, 2008

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs