Send Indian Food & Snacks Abroad

Sending Kerala food to family in the Gulf

Food is one of the most common things we forward to Dubai, and the route is the simplest we run. Nobody in the family has to book an international courier or fill in an export form.

1. He signs up free and gets an Indian delivery address in Kerala with his own suite code.
2. You send the food to that address by any domestic courier, hand it in at our warehouse in Kerala, or ask us to collect it from anywhere in Kerala. The parcel goes under his name and suite code; you do not need an account.
3. We open, check and photograph it, so he sees exactly what arrived. Liquid pickles and coconut oil get packed separately so a leak does not ruin the rest.
4. He asks us to ship, alone or combined with anything else he has waiting, and it goes by direct courier: typically 4 to 8 business days to the UAE, which is our fastest route.
5. Duty at his end is about 5% of value in the UAE, and many small personal parcels clear without any charge at all.

What goes to the Gulf, and what does not

Goes freely, declared item by item: vegetarian pickles (mango, lemon, garlic, puli inji), banana, Nendran, tapioca and jackfruit chips, murukku, achappam and mixture, pappadam, sharkara varatti, chammanthi and dosa podi, curry powders, cardamom, pepper and other dry spices, tea and coffee powder.

Goes, with care: homemade food, sealed in airtight containers with the contents written on the outside, is accepted, and it is looked at more closely than a factory packet. Meat pickles are the hard case: meat generally needs to be halal-certified to clear comfortably, so keep a homemade parcel vegetarian.

Refused: pork and anything made from it, alcohol (including food cooked with it), anything containing poppy seeds, and fresh fruit, vegetables and plants.

The full list is on the UAE and Saudi Arabia restriction pages.

Heat, not customs, is the real risk

Jaggery-coated snacks, halwa and anything with a fat or wax base soften in a box on a Gulf tarmac in summer. Send those in the cooler months, or tell us when you hand the parcel over and we pack for it.

Sending Indian food everywhere else

Commercially packaged, sealed, shelf-stable food (snacks, spices, pickles, tea, ready-mixes and sweets) can usually be forwarded abroad. Fresh food, meat and dairy are widely restricted and often refused, and homemade food is accepted in some countries and refused in others.

Most people order the brands they already know: Haldiram’s and Bikaji for namkeen and sweets, MTR and Aachi for ready-mixes and masalas, Eastern for spices, from the brands’ own websites or from Amazon.in and Flipkart. Each order arrives at your Indian address as an ordinary domestic delivery, and we combine them into one box.

For spices in particular, see our notes on buying Indian spices from India.

Declare all food contents accurately. Australia and New Zealand enforce very strict biosecurity: seeds, raw grain, fresh produce, honey and homemade food of any kind are refused. The UK, the EU and Canada refuse meat and restrict dairy, which is what catches beef pickle and ghee. Sealed factory packaging with an ingredients list clears best everywhere.

Packing food for shipping

We repack fragile and leak-prone items carefully and consolidate them with your other parcels. Avoid anything with a very short shelf life, and seal homemade jars properly before they leave the house.