TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Food in check in bag

We are getting ready for our trip next month.
The question I have is: I want to pack and vacuum seal couple of pounds of homemade sausages and also couple of pounds of cheese.
Is it ok/legal to pack them in check in bag?
We will be flying from yyz with westjet.

Not a problem. I do it ev every year. Check it in SEA, west coast, and it's still frozen when I unpack in SXM. I take game sausage, Pacific king and silver salmon, various meats etc. No restrictions or problems.

There's no LEGAL problem with it. We always take a really small cooler onboard the plane with us. This is since the one and only time that we put some meat in a checked bag which we didn't see again for three days..

I'm curious why you would take cheese? There are very large numbers of kinds of cheeses in st Martin especially super u & carrefour. I know Canada has limits about quantity of cheese brought across the border as our daughters found out an actual limit on dairy. Taking in suitcase out I don't know.

"Why take cheese" we take a type of cheese as a gift to some island friends that we get from Trader Joe's that can't be found on island. There are always reasons people do what they do.

May I ask what kind of cheese? We like Trader Joe's Stilton with apricots

Sarah.

Thank you scubaman. We were worried about having our bag x-ray. It's the first time we take food with us. Main reason is that is cheaper in Canada than SXM. Some of our friends take a lot of food with them, but they also stay a lot longer than one week.

Your bag can always be x-rayed, its usually a random selection if they are actually operating it.

One time flying from SBH back home via SXM they x-rayed my bag which had the Veuve Clicquot St Barth special tin and made me open to show the bottle, plus wanted to the know price.

I wonder if you are actually bringing $100's of food would they make you pay a duty?

"I wonder if you are actually bringing $100's of food would they make you pay a duty?"
They don't care. That person was just being curious and overstepping their authority.

Amen

We do it all the time on WestJet YYZ to SXM. We stay for about 10 weeks and can bring enough food for about 30 meals. All frozen (some pre-prepared, some not) in soft sided cooler bags in our checked bags.