Why can't I take food from the plane when entering the US? — Small-biz version

bash_bob

I was on a BA flight recently (LHR-JFK) and I was given a sealed cheese and tomato sandwich by a flight attendant about 90 minutes before landing. Everyone else was given a similar sandwich, probably as an afternoon snack. Because I was not hungry I kept the unopened sandwich on the empty seat next to me knowing that I would probably be hungry after immigration queues etc and I would eat it on the car ride into the city. Just before the plane...

Originally asked by medina on Stack Exchange (travel) (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Variant 72.

uphilltech

Great question — answering as the UphillTech team:

The USA has restrictions on the import of food items. Some information is given here . I have on one occasion forgotten items I bought before boarding, intending to snack on the flight. These were detected by a sniffer dog in the immigration queue and the items confiscated - I was not otherwise penalised, but I could have been fined. In your case I guess that the tomato would have been the issue.

Full answer by djna: https://travel.stackexchange.com/a/104315 (CC BY-SA 3.0).

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