Can acai be brought into Australia, and what happens at the line?

Before anything is sent

The department gives one instruction before anything else, and it is meant to be followed before money changes hands: check that the food, plant material or animal product is allowed into Australia, and do that before buying goods online from sellers outside Australia or sending goods to someone here. The duty is not only the sender’s. Australian residents buying goods online from outside Australia, online sellers whether a business or an individual, and family and friends sending a gift all have to comply with Australian biosecurity laws when goods are mailed here, and a seller located outside Australia who sells goods to customers in Australia must comply with those laws too.

The range of outcomes is set out in one sentence: some goods pose a significant biosecurity risk and are not permitted entry at all, while other goods are only allowed if they meet import conditions. Where conditions apply, the receiver of a parcel may need to hold a valid import permit issued by the department, or pay for treatment on arrival to reduce the risk.

Which conditions apply is not a fixed answer. The department’s own instruction to senders is to check the conditions each time, because the conditions it publishes are reviewed regularly. Its second instruction is about preparation: make sure goods are prepared and packed properly, and declare items accurately.

Import conditions in BICON are reviewed regularly. Make sure you check the conditions each time you want to send or order goods.

Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Sending or ordering goods online from outside Australia

What the instrument asks of the goods

The instrument behind the conditions is the Biosecurity (Conditionally Non-prohibited Goods) Determination 2021. For subsection 174(1) of the Biosecurity Act 2015, it provides that specified classes of goods must not be brought or imported into Australian territory unless specified conditions are complied with. The classes it applies to include live plants, plant products and goods containing, or made of, plants, and fungi and goods containing, or made of, fungi. As a general rule, goods in those classes must not be brought or imported unless either they are covered by an import permit, or the alternative conditions the instrument sets are complied with. That general rule has limits and additions, among them: goods made of, or containing, two or more different kinds of goods have rules of their own; where the instrument’s divisions on hitchhiker pests or khapra beetle apply to goods, their additional conditions must also be complied with; and goods that are the subject of an import declaration also need, at the time the declaration is made, a plan to manage their biosecurity risks that is listed in the List of Biosecurity Preparedness Plans and ordinarily accessible through the department’s website. An import permit is a permit granted under section 179 of the Act, and goods are covered by one when the permit authorises a person to bring or import those goods.

The alternative conditions are set out commodity by commodity, and three of them matter to acai’s forms. Fruit, vegetables, leaves, herbs and fungi have an item of their own, and its conditions are that the goods are free from pests and diseases which present an unacceptable level of biosecurity risk, that they have been treated or processed to manage those risks, and that they are accompanied by evidence that this was done. Unprocessed fresh fruit has a further item, and a closer set of conditions, all of which have to hold: the goods are listed fresh produce for human consumption; they are free from pests and diseases that present an unacceptable biosecurity risk; they are accompanied by a phytosanitary certificate issued by the exporting country’s national plant protection organisation stating that the goods are free of those pests and diseases; the certificate describes the goods, including the botanical name with genus and species, distinguishing marks such as the brand or grower, and the quantity, volume and weight; the goods are securely packed in clean and new packaging; and any information visible on the packaging is not inconsistent with the certificate or the commercial documents that travel with the goods. A processed plant product has a shorter item, for goods no other item covers: the goods have been processed so that they are not viable and there is no risk of contamination or infection from a disease or plant pathogen.

“Listed fresh produce for human consumption” is the instrument’s own term, and it is defined by reference to a published list: a plant, or a part of a plant, of a species, or from a country, that is listed in the List of Fresh Produce for Human Consumption with Alternative Conditions for Import prepared by the Director of Biosecurity and published on the Agriculture Department’s website. The list is where the species and the country enter the decision, and it is maintained on the department’s side. That is why the conditions for a particular fruit, from a particular country, are read at the time of sending rather than assumed.

One parcel, two ways

Take one parcel of dried powder bought from an overseas seller, and one sent by a friend abroad as a gift. The law treats them alike: both senders have to comply with Australian biosecurity laws, and so does the buyer. The first thing the department asks of the parcel is a truthful label: fill out the postal declaration label clearly and correctly, and include a detailed description, what it is and what it is made from. Words like “gift”, “present” or “goods” are not acceptable on their own, and everything inside the article has to be itemised, packing materials included.

The packing matters as much as the label. Goods should not be packed in egg cartons, wooden boxes, or cardboard boxes that have been used to hold fruit, vegetables, meat or smallgoods, because those materials are a biosecurity risk: live insects often hide in crevices. Straw and dried plant material should not be used as padding, and newspaper or foam should be used instead for anything fragile.

Then the parcel meets the mail system, and this is not a formality: every mail article arriving at Australia’s international mail centres is assessed, with biosecurity officers and detector dogs looking for risk goods such as food, plant material and animal products. X-ray, detector dogs and manual inspection are the three methods the department names, and an article may be selected for random inspection even when nothing at all has been declared. For a powder of a fruit, the instrument’s item for fruit asks that it be free from pests and diseases that present an unacceptable biosecurity risk, treated or processed to manage those risks, and accompanied by evidence of that. Where no alternative condition applies to the goods, the permit route is the other way through, and a receiver may be the one who needs the permit or who pays for treatment on arrival.

At the line, and after it

Four endings are set out for a parcel at the line. If the biosecurity officers determine that the mail does not pose a biosecurity risk, it is released for delivery by Australia Post. If the goods do not meet the import conditions, they are immediately destroyed or sent back to the overseas sender. Some goods may require treatment before they are permitted into Australia, and the cost of treatment for an item arriving by international mail is A$94 per item, at the importer’s expense. And where an attempt has been made to conceal goods, the importer may be subject to an investigation and possible criminal prosecution; the department gives, as an example of concealment, a supplier packing goods in a manner designed to hide them or make them hard to identify.

Food that clears the border does not leave the law behind it. Foods imported into Australia are subject to requirements under the Biosecurity Act 2015 and the Imported Food Control Act 1992, which the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry enforces, and state and territory food enforcement agencies are responsible for enforcing the Code for all food available for sale within their jurisdiction, imported food included.

For a question about the border itself, the department lists what it handles: biosecurity issues, particularly for many raw foods and certain processed foods brought through the airport or mailed to Australia; permits for imported food; foods which have been stopped at the border; testing of imported food; the Imported Food Inspection Scheme or related data; and food exports. Where a parcel has cleared and the question is about the food rather than the border, the agency to ask is the state or territory food enforcement agency, and FSANZ’s own list of them is linked below.