From 12th December, 2003 the US Government introduced laws about sending food and drink in to the USA. Items containing manufactured food will not be accepted by Royal Mail or at your local Post Office™ without the relevant pre-notification details.

Before posting any food-stuffs to the USA you may need to complete an online form to pre-advise the US authorities of its arrival. After completing this form it should take about 15 minutes to receive your ‘prior notification reference number’ from the US Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) which needs to be included on the usual Customs form – more Customs information

This applies to any manufactured food or drink for either humans or animals but does not apply to homemade or manufactured foods being sent as a personal gift to individual people in the USA but you should clearly indicate this on the Customs form that this the case. If you don’t do this your parcels or packets containing food or drink may be returned to you or even destroyed.

This move by the US Government is to help protect the USA from the possibility of a bio-terrorist attack via food items sent in to the country by post and applies to all countries around the world.

Find out more from the US Food and Drugs Administration website