Dutch mn, what would be good to send from UK?

[steppemum]

dh is Dutch, and we last saw his family for new year 2020.
We were planning to go for new year 2022, but have now abandoned this idea.

I thought I'd like to send a small package to the family(ies). One pack for each one. Kids are pre-teen and teen. Plus very elderly father.

It is a kerst paket, but NOT a Christmas present if that makes sense and they don't do christmas presents.
I was thinking about some English biscuits/chocolates. Maybe some soap from Lush or something like that.

Any suggestions?
What would you like to receive from the UK ?

I recently sent a gift, declared everything neatly on forms, under the customs value, and they still bloody charged my mum a fee. They just make it up as they go along I swear.
Be careful with food, lots of things are not allowed to be sent in the post now!

@daisypond Of course you can still send chocolates and biscuits etc. (You can buy toblerone in airport duty free )

' No health certificate is required for products in which the animal component is no longer recognizable. Examples of those products are chocolate and candy.'

Dairy means no whole eggs, milk, cream etc

Ah, OK, I’d misunderstood. I was sure chocks and biscuits weren’t allowed. Glad to hear they are.

Actually, you can’t send chocolate:

FOOD
Cannot be sent

Fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds
Meat, fish and other animal products
Dairy products such as chocolate (including dry products containing dairy such as protein powder)
Perishable products of any kind

Can be sent(must not contain dairy or be of animal origin) :

Sweets / Candy
Biscuits / Cookies
Crisps / Chips

COSMETICS
Cannot be sent

Body creams
Lotions
Moisturisers
Sun cream

Can be sent

Shower gels
Toothpaste
Shampoo

It seems totally random and made up.

I wondered if the can't contain dairy thing might refer to chocolate with fresh cream in etc? Shelf stable goods ought to be fine.

You can’t send certain crisps. They got me on that one 😳

I mean where even are those two lists from and why do they contradict each other?

Chocolate etc has been fine to send outside or into EU from outside before. What is so illegal about British choc?

@Lacesaskew

Ok guys, I love you all and mn is amazing, but I asked for suggestions for items and I have had 3 posts saying they will need to pay customs.

NO THEY WON'T

I have just checked, but gift items under £39 are customs free.

Fair enough if you want to risk it op. I was just trying to warn you because we (based in low countries) have received parcels from well meaning family members for my dd's birthday, and they had kept to the monetary limit, marked the packages as "gifts" and paid all relevant charges in UK, but they were still subject to delays and handling charges at this end, and my family don't know this, but we ended up having to pay more to extract the parcels from the post office than the contents were worth.

Same! Birthday. Gifts, marked as gifts, under the limit, all paid U.K. end, still held up in our post office system and we’re charged for the privilege. (U.K. -> EU)

I have family in the Netherlands and every single bloody parcel since brexit has been subject to handling charges and customs. The charges make no sense and seem to be totally arbitrary.

We have been sending to family in NL (on their request): Earl Grey tea bags and other tea, Whittard's single origin coffee, Hotel Chocolat chocolates, shortbread. Took ages to get there but no charges. On the subject of chocolate, yes Belgian chocolate is gorgeous but everyone likes a change.

The tax thing sounds horrendous, I usually order from amazon.co.uk so it's been ok but had no idea it's this bad now :(

If you get someone to take stuff over steppemum then curlywurlys for the kids and baking ingredient Golden Syrup are impossible to get hold of and proper Yorkshire Gold teabags, though very few dutchies drink tea with milk and english tea doesn't taste right without.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

dhand I have decided not to risk a parcel. The aim was just some nice bits and bobs, and that is not worth the risk of the tax.

Funnily enough, despite all the tea recommendation, that is the thing that I would never send, none of them drink English type tea at all, not even Earl Grey.
But they do like the occasional After Eight, shortbread biscuit and nice soaps. It wasn;t really if they could get them in Holland or not, more just what would be nice to send that was a bit English.

It really does make me sad, I did this last Christmas when Christmas was cancelled, I sent a shoebox to my brothers' families in the UK, lots of bits with silly messages and printed off bad Christmas jokes and memes and stuck them on each parcel. It was a great success.

And I say it again, for years we have sent these type of small gifts back and forth between UK and USA and Australia, and Central Asia. None of them attracted undue taxes etc (although in Central Asia you do have to collect parcel from the Post Office, they are not delivered to the door). This whole nonsense in the EU at the moment is, I am sure a UK / EU issue.

It sounds like it'd be easier, quicker and cheaper to hand deliver!

@girlmom21

It sounds like it'd be easier, quicker and cheaper to hand deliver!

I'd love to. We had planned to go for New Year, but have decided that it is not feasable now. Then dh was going to go this week to see his dad (who is pretty elderly,and he hasn;t seen for nearly 2 years) Then NL introduced and extra lockdown, and now he would have to isolate coming back due to this new variant.

So that is on hold too.