• Question: When going into Canada, our clotted cream was confiscated because of the possibility of it bringing in foot and mouth disease, it was sterilized so could it ahve brought the disease in?

    Asked by minertor to Laura, Nicola, Norman, Sandra, Thanasis on 15 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Laura Soul

      Laura Soul answered on 15 Mar 2013:

      I’m not sure, sometimes if the sterilisation process is not good enough some viruses can survive it, but I don’t know how they sterilise clotted cream so I’m not sure.

      I do know though that Canada has had a really huge problem with foot and mouth disease in the past and that previously they lost lots of money and it was really bad for their farmers. This means that they really don’t want it to happen again so they are probably very cautious to be on the safe side, which I think is fair enough, they don’t want to take any risks! Although its sad that they took your cream!

    • Photo: Sandra Phinbow

      Sandra Phinbow answered on 15 Mar 2013:

      I’ve been to Canada a few times you have to declare all food, animals and plants at the border. They are very strict because as Laura said, they have had big problems in the past, and so they are very strict on the import regulaltions and just don’t take any chances. You can take in quite a sizeable chunk of cheese but no other dairy – milk, cream, yoghurt etc, not even if it is in dried powder form.

      I hope you had fun in Canada, it’s really beautiful

    • Photo: Nicola Wardrop

      Nicola Wardrop answered on 15 Mar 2013:

      I think it probably would have been safe to bring in as the sterlisation process should have killed off the viruses, but then it depends on exactly how it was sterlised. However, if they ask you to declare these things then unfortunately that is what we have to do. Many countries have these kinds of policies to prevent people from bringing in diseases (or unwanted weeds, plants, insects etc), as they can cause massive problems. Australia is very strict, so I even had to tell them if i had walked on a farm in the few weeks before I arrived!

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