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Personal imports: Publicity campaigns

"Don't bring it back"

A video to help explain the rules about bringing food into the UK from countries outside the EU and why these rules exist.

Don't Bring Me Back: Personal Food Imports Campaign

19 October 2009 - Re-launch of the Personal Food Imports campaign for general travellers: The Government’s ‘Don’t bring it back!’ campaign aims to increase awareness among general travellers heading to most countries outside the European Union (EU) in respect of what food products they can and can’t bring back to the UK.

This involved numerous radio interviews and some footage recorded for online use with Simon Calder, campaign spokesperson and a respected travel journalist, and Chris Pratt, an experienced Border Force Officer based at Heathrow airport. We also received some excellent coverage in the BBC Breakfast news programme on Saturday 17 October.

A consumer news story providing advice to holidaymakers/travellers has also been issued.

Background

There continues to be a joined-up approach across Government Departments (Defra, United Kingdom Border Agency (UKBA) and the Food Standards Agency (FSA)) on the overall GB communications strategy to help raise travellers’ awareness of the EU rules on personal imports of POAO.

A variety of public awareness raising mechanisms are deployed whether it’s targeting inland audiences or providing information at the GB borders or to those intending to travel to the UK.  Department of Agriculture and Rural Development for Northern Ireland (DARDNI) is responsible for raising public awareness of the EU rules on personal imports of POAO in NI.

The strategy also complements UKBA’s targeted checks at the border. The overall aim remains to enhance awareness of the risks posed by products that may carry animal diseases and to reduce the volume of illegal products brought in because of ignorance of the rules.

There are two specific areas covered within the overall strategy – one targeted at the Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) audience and one targeted at the general travelling public.

The cross-media BME campaign is managed by a specialist publicity agency. Research shows that for some ethnic cultures, bringing back food is a longstanding tradition which is reflected by seizure rates showing that significant amounts of illegal food imports are seized from people travelling from certain countries.

We therefore concentrate our resources on particular communities with the primary target audience being Black African (predominantly from Nigeria) and Chinese with the secondary audiences being Black African (predominantly from Ghana), Bangladeshi, Black Caribbean, Middle Eastern, Indian, Pakistani and Turkish. 

The campaign’s aims are to:

  • Reduce the amount of illegal food brought into the UK from travellers arriving from countries outside the EU;
  • Increase awareness of the EU rules on personal imports of POAO;
  • Encourage people to change their behaviour so that they don’t bring in illegal food products.

The campaign is focussed on three key messages:

  • Why the EU rules exist – to prevent the entry of animal and plant diseases into the UK;
  • The implications of breaking the law – illegal products will be seized and destroyed by Border Force Officers, you will face delays and you could face prosecution;
  • Availability in the UK – most of the illegal products that are being brought in are already available here, so save yourself money, time and inconvenience and buy in the UK.

As part of our wider mainstream ‘general travelling public’ campaign, we have a public information film (TV filler), launched in August 2008, which is being shown across the UK on selected terrestrial, cable and satellite channels. It highlights the risks travellers face if they bring illegal food products into the UK.

Although it takes a humorous and light-hearted approach, with puppets made to look like food that sing to travellers, the message is very serious. It focuses on the personal inconvenience of being delayed at the airport as a result of baggage searches by Border Force Officers, and of having any illegal food products seized, but ends with the stark warning about the possibility of causing a disease outbreak and also facing prosecution. It is targeted at all travellers entering the UK from countries outside the EU.

Further information

You can find more recent information about Defra’s ongoing publicity activity (in partnership with UKBA and the FSA), including the TV filler, in the ‘Raising Awareness’ section (pages 10 – 16) of the Annual Review of Controls on Imports of Animal Products: April 2008 – March 2009.

Defra has also created two Directgov campaign websites – one targeted at the BME audience (www.direct.gov.uk/foodimports) and one targeted at the general travelling public (www.direct.gov.uk/dontbringmeback).

More information about the campaign’s participating departments can be found at:

Page last modified: November 18, 2009

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