How to Import Honey into the UK from Ukraine: The Controls, Documents and Checks, Step by Step

How to Import Honey into the UK from Ukraine: The Controls, Documents and Checks, Step by Step

Honey is a product of animal origin. Importing it from Ukraine means a CHED-P in IPAFFS, not just a customs entry.

That single fact reshapes the whole job. Honey looks like a shelf-stable grocery line — ambient, sealed, no chill chain — so it's tempting to treat it as a straightforward customs entry with a commodity code and a duty bill. But to the GB border, honey is a product of animal origin (POAO), and Ukraine is a third country. That combination pulls honey into the sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) regime: a CHED-P raised in IPAFFS before arrival, a model health certificate signed in Ukraine, a Ukrainian establishment that appears on the APHA-approved third-country list, and a possible physical check at a border control post (BCP). The customs declaration in CDS is the easy half. This piece walks the consignment from the order in Ukraine to release at the GB border, in the order you actually need to do it. Rules for third countries change — treat this as the map, and check the current import conditions for honey before you commit to an order.

Is honey a product of animal origin, and why does that matter?

Yes. Honey is classed as a product of animal origin (POAO) because it is produced by bees, and GOV.UK's import guidance treats POAO from third countries as subject to SPS controls. That classification is what triggers the pre-notification, health certificate and BCP-check regime — none of which apply to a purely customs line.

This is the load-bearing point, so it's worth being precise about why it matters in practice. Two parallel systems govern your import, and they don't talk to each other automatically:

• The customs system — your import declaration in CDS (the Customs Declaration Service), your commodity code, your duty and any tariff preference.
• The SPS system — your CHED-P pre-notification in IPAFFS, the health certificate from Ukraine, and the BCP checks under BTOM.

Getting the customs entry right does nothing to clear the SPS side, and vice versa. A consignment can be perfectly declared on CDS and still sit held at the border because the CHED-P was raised late or the certificate doesn't match. Conversely, a clean SPS clearance won't release goods you've mis-classified for duty. You — or your appointed agent — are responsible for both.

Can you import Ukrainian honey at all — is Ukraine approved?

Eligibility comes first, before any paperwork. For POAO, the third country has to be approved to export that specific commodity to GB, and the individual producing/dispatching establishment has to appear on the relevant APHA-approved establishment list. If Ukraine isn't listed for honey, or your supplier's establishment isn't, the import cannot legally proceed — no certificate, no entry.

So the very first action is to confirm two things against the official lists, not against your supplier's assurance:

1. Is Ukraine approved to export honey to GB? Approved third-country lists are published via GOV.UK and APHA and cover honey and other POAO. Country approval also depends on an accepted residue monitoring plan for the commodity — the control that confirms how the exporting country monitors for veterinary residues and contaminants.
2. Is your specific Ukrainian supplier on the approved establishment list? The CHED-P and the health certificate will both carry an establishment approval number, and it has to be a real, current, listed number.

These lists are reviewed and updated. The version that cleared your last shipment may not be current for the next, so re-check before each order rather than assuming continuity.

What is a CHED-P, and how is it different from the other CHED types?

A CHED is a Common Health Entry Document — the pre-notification you raise in IPAFFS to tell the GB authorities a controlled consignment is coming. The letter sets the type. CHED-P is for products of animal origin, which is what honey is. You raise it; it isn't the haulier's job.

The CHED family, defined once so it's clear which one applies:

• CHED-A — live animals.
• CHED-P — products of animal origin (POAO). This is the one for honey.
• CHED-D — feed and food of non-animal origin subject to controls.
• CHED-PP — plants and plant products.

For honey, the answer is CHED-P, raised in IPAFFS. Booking a slot or vehicle at the border is not the same as having the right CHED in place — that's a documentary obligation that sits with the importer, and it has to be done before the goods arrive.

What documents do you need to import honey from Ukraine?

Three things must exist before the lorry leaves Ukraine: an eligible, listed establishment; a signed model health certificate covering the consignment; and your IPAFFS pre-notification (the CHED-P) raised ahead of arrival. Behind those sit your commodity code and customs declaration. Get the order of these wrong and the consignment holds.

Here's what each document is and does:

• The model health certificate (EHC at the export end). Honey from a third country travels under the official model health certificate for that commodity, signed by the competent authority in Ukraine. It attests that the honey meets GB import conditions. Every field on it — establishment number, product description, quantities, container/seal details — must match the physical consignment and your CHED-P. This is the single most common cause of documentary holds: a mismatch between the certificate and the pre-notification.
• The CHED-P in IPAFFS. Your pre-notification. It references the certificate and declares the consignment to the authorities ahead of arrival. The fields have to match the certificate exactly.
• The commodity code. Natural honey classifies under heading 0409. The full code you declare determines both your duty rate on CDS and the SPS treatment the goods receive — so a wrong code can mean a mis-declaration on both systems at once.
• The customs declaration in CDS. Your import entry: commodity code, customs value, origin, any tariff preference claimed.
• Supporting commercial documents. Commercial invoice, packing list, transport documents and any establishment/approval references your agent needs to complete the entry.

A practical note on origin and tariff preference: the UK has a trade agreement with Ukraine, and you may be able to claim preferential duty if the honey meets the rules of origin and you hold valid proof of origin. But tariff preference and SPS controls are entirely separate systems. A trade deal that reduces or removes duty does not remove the CHED-P, the health certificate or the vet checks. The honey still clears the SPS regime regardless of what duty you pay.

When do you raise the CHED-P — and what is the timing?

You raise the CHED-P in IPAFFS before the consignment arrives at the GB border control post, not after. The pre-notification window is set in the import rules and matters operationally: an arrival with no valid pre-notification in place risks being refused or held. Plan to have IPAFFS done well ahead of the border, not at it.

The reason timing trips people up is that everything at the border is checked against documents raised beforehand. The BCP doesn't generate your paperwork — it verifies it. So the sequence is fixed:

1. Confirm Ukraine and the establishment are approved (before you order).
2. Agree the correct model health certificate with your supplier; the competent authority in Ukraine signs it.
3. Raise the CHED-P in IPAFFS, matching the certificate, ahead of arrival.
4. Submit the CDS import declaration with the correct commodity code.
5. The consignment arrives at the BCP; documentary, and possibly identity and physical, checks happen.
6. The CHED-P is finalised and the goods are released — or held if something doesn't match.

Miss step 3's timing and you've turned a routine import into a hold. With honey that's ambient, so the cost is commercial and administrative rather than a perishable write-off — but a held consignment still ties up cash, storage and a slot.

What checks happen at the border, and how often?

At the BCP, honey faces documentary checks every time, plus identity and physical checks at a frequency set by its risk category under the Border Target Operating Model (BTOM). BTOM assigns POAO commodities a risk level, and that level drives how often a consignment is physically opened and sampled rather than cleared on paperwork alone.

There are three layers of check:

• Documentary check — do the CHED-P, the health certificate and the entry agree, and is the establishment listed? This happens for every controlled consignment.
• Identity check — does the physical consignment match the documents (seals, marks, establishment number)?
• Physical check — opening and, where relevant, sampling the goods, including for veterinary residues.

The identity and physical check rate is what the BTOM risk category governs. Because that categorisation is set by Defra and reviewed over time, the honest position is: confirm the current risk category for honey before your next shipment books, rather than assuming the rate that applied last time still holds. If you want certainty for a specific consignment, that's exactly the kind of thing to check against the live rules or ask us.

A worked example: a pallet of Ukrainian honey, start to finish

Take a real-shaped scenario — an importer placing a first order of jarred natural honey from a Ukrainian supplier — and run it through the whole process.

Before ordering. The importer checks the approved third-country lists: Ukraine is checked for honey eligibility and a residue monitoring plan, and the supplier's establishment number is confirmed on the APHA-approved list. Without both, there's no point proceeding — so this gate comes first, not last.

Classifying the goods. The honey is natural honey under heading 0409. The importer confirms the full commodity code, which fixes both the duty treatment on CDS and the SPS handling. Because the UK–Ukraine agreement is in play, the importer checks whether the honey meets the rules of origin and whether valid proof of origin is available to claim preference — knowing this affects duty only, not the SPS controls.

Arranging the certificate. The importer agrees with the supplier that the consignment will travel under the correct model health certificate, signed by Ukraine's competent authority. They cross-check the establishment number, product description and quantities so the certificate will match what's actually shipped.

Pre-notifying. Ahead of the consignment leaving — and certainly before GB arrival — the importer (or their agent) raises the CHED-P in IPAFFS, copying the certificate details across field-for-field. A typo in the establishment number or a quantity mismatch here is what causes a hold, so it's checked twice.

Customs entry. The CDS declaration goes in with the commodity code, customs value, origin and any preference claim.

At the border. The consignment reaches the BCP. The documentary check confirms the CHED-P, certificate and entry agree and the establishment is listed. Depending on honey's current BTOM risk category, it may also get an identity and physical check. Everything matches; the CHED-P is finalised and the goods are released.

Where it would have gone wrong. Had the importer treated honey as a plain grocery line — booked the haulier, filed a CDS entry, and skipped IPAFFS — the consignment would have arrived with no CHED-P and no health certificate, and been held or refused. The customs half would have looked complete. The SPS half is where the import actually lives.

How does this interact with labelling and onward sale?

Clearing the border is one thing; selling the honey legally in GB is another. Honey carries product-specific compositional and labelling rules on top of general food information requirements (FIC) — country of origin, the name "honey", net quantity, the responsible food business operator and so on. Those obligations apply once the goods are in market, separately from import clearance, and they're worth designing in before you print labels rather than after the pallet lands. Import clearance and in-market compliance are two different jobs; both have to be right.

What does Falsum do, and what can you handle yourself?

Plenty of this is manageable in-house once you know the route: confirming the establishment is listed, agreeing the certificate with your supplier, and keeping IPAFFS fields matched to the certificate are all things a capable ops team can own. Where it pays to get help is the first-time setup — confirming Ukraine and the establishment are genuinely approved for honey, pinning the right commodity code so you're not mis-declared on two systems, and reading the current import conditions and BTOM risk category before you commit. We live in the detail so you don't.

Borders are complicated. We aren't. If you've got a Ukrainian honey consignment moving soon — or one already held — the Falsum Helpdesk triages live customs and SPS issues: support.falsum.co.uk. Or if you're planning the route and want it scoped first, tell us the goods and the route — we'll tell you exactly what you need.

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