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US service suspended We have suspended the US service of our website as from Monday 07th March 2005. The FDA have made it impossible to ship anything in to the US without a massive amount of paperwork. It takes about 20 minutes just to complete the form that is now required to clear customs. We just do not have the time to do this for each parcel, so we are unable to supply our US customers.
Until recently FedEx we entering this on our behalf, but we recently found that they were charging $20 to do this which makes a delivery expensive on a $60 order. FDA Prior submission is a very lengthly proceedure for each parcel we have to complete a very long online form, indicating what is in the parcel, how its packed, the units, the number of pieces and packaging material used. We also have to include the receivers details and many many other fields of information. With the number of parcels we ship per day this is just not possible to do. Without this prior notice the US will return a parcel and fine the couriers $500, so as you can imagine the couriers are taking a hard line on this.
We understand the need for more security and information about food products that come in the US. But the time taken to input a prior submission manually to the FDA is just not possible for high volume shippers like ourselves. Unless an easier or simplier way for submission is available in the future we can no longer use couriers such as FedEx. The US has just gone over top with security at its borders.
We have tried our best for the past 6 months to bring US customers some great coffees. Thanks to all our US customers, we hope you enjoyed our coffees. We are monitoring the situation if there is a way we can do this easier we will but at the moment its not possible.
For more information on the FDA Bio-terrorism law Click Here
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