How to import poultry meat into the UK from Brazil: the controls, documents and checks, step by step

How to import poultry meat into the UK from Brazil: the controls, documents and checks, step by step

Brazilian poultry meat is high-risk POAO: it needs a CHED-P, an IPAFFS pre-notification, and an EHC signed by the Brazilian competent authority before it sails.

That single sentence holds most of what decides whether your consignment clears or sits at the border. Poultry meat is a product of animal origin (POAO), so under the Border Target Operating Model (BTOM) it carries SPS controls on top of the customs entry — they run separately, and you need both. This guide walks the import of poultry meat from Brazil to the UK end to end: the establishment approval, the Export Health Certificate (EHC), the IPAFFS pre-notification, the Common Health Entry Document (CHED-P), the Border Control Post (BCP), and the documentary, identity and physical checks the port health authority and FSA run on arrival. Throughout, the named entities you'll meet are the EHC, IPAFFS, CHED-P, the GB-approved establishment list, the BCP, the commodity code, and Brazil's avian influenza status.

Rules change — particularly anything tied to disease status — so treat this as the shape of the process, and check the current conditions for your specific commodity and route before you ship.

Can you actually import poultry meat from Brazil into the UK?

Yes, in principle — but only product from a Brazilian establishment approved to export to GB, certified against the right model health certificate, can enter. Brazil is a listed third country for poultry meat, but eligibility is conditional: it depends on the establishment, the commodity, and Brazil's current animal-health status. Confirm all three before you commit to a purchase.

This is the first thing to get right, because it's the cheapest place to fail. The right to import isn't a blanket country-level permission — it's specific. APHA publishes the import conditions for poultry meat, and those conditions tie back to a list of approved third-country establishments maintained for GB. The slaughterhouse, cutting plant or cold store that handled your product must appear on that list, approved for the commodity you're buying.

If you're buying through a trader rather than direct from the plant, you still need to know the establishment approval number, because it has to appear on the EHC and it has to match the health mark on the product. A mismatch here is a documentary-check failure waiting to happen.

What's the difference between the customs side and the SPS side?

Your customs entry clears the duty side. It does nothing for the SPS side — poultry meat needs both, and they run separately. The customs declaration (submitted through CDS) deals with duty, VAT and the commodity code. The SPS controls — pre-notification, the health certificate and the BCP checks — exist to protect animal and public health, and they're administered by different authorities entirely.

This is the single most expensive misconception for first-time POAO importers. A clean customs entry tells you nothing about whether port health will release the consignment. They are two parallel processes that both have to succeed. Customs is HMRC and CDS. The SPS side is Defra policy, APHA conditions, IPAFFS for pre-notification, and the port health authority plus the FSA doing the checks at the BCP.

Treat them as two workstreams from day one. The customs side needs an accurate commodity code and a declaration; the SPS side needs the EHC, the IPAFFS entry and a BCP booking. Get the customs entry perfect and forget the CHED-P, and you still have a held, perishable load.

What documents do you need to import Brazilian poultry meat?

You need an Export Health Certificate (EHC) signed by Brazil's official veterinarian, an IPAFFS pre-notification that generates a CHED-P reference, a customs declaration with the correct commodity code, and commercial paperwork (invoice, packing list, transport documents) that matches all of the above. Each has to agree with the others.

Here's what each does and where it comes from:

• The Export Health Certificate (EHC). This is the official attestation that the consignment meets GB's import conditions. GOV.UK lists the model health certificate for poultry meat to GB by country — Brazil's version sets the exact attestations your supplier must sign. Critically, the EHC isn't paperwork you raise. Brazil's official vet issues and signs it — if it's wrong, you can't fix it at the GB port. The certificate references the establishment approval number, the commodity, quantities and the consignment details. It must travel with the goods (the original, per the current rules on certificate format — check whether electronic certification applies to your route).
• The IPAFFS pre-notification. IPAFFS (Import of Products, Animals, Food and Feed System) is where you, the importer (or your agent acting for you), notify the authorities that the consignment is coming. Submitting it generates the CHED-P — the Common Health Entry Document for products. The CHED-P is the document the BCP works from. You enter the commodity code, the EHC reference, the establishment, the BCP of entry and the expected arrival.
• The customs declaration. Submitted through CDS, with the commodity code that classifies your exact product. The commodity code drives duty and links to the SPS measures that flag the consignment for controls in the first place. Get the code wrong and you can misstate duty and fail to trigger — or wrongly trigger — the right controls.
• Commercial and transport documents. Invoice, packing list, bill of lading or air waybill. These have to reconcile with the EHC and the CHED-P. Weights, quantities and descriptions that don't match are a classic cause of documentary-check queries.

Your CHED-P needs the right commodity code, the EHC reference, and the BCP — get one field wrong and port health holds a perishable load. The fields are unforgiving because they're cross-checked against each other and against the physical goods.

What is a CHED-P and how is it different from a CHED-D?

A CHED-P is the Common Health Entry Document for products — including POAO like poultry meat. CHED types map to what's entering: CHED-A for live animals, CHED-P for products of animal origin, CHED-D for certain feed and food of non-animal origin, CHED-PP for plants and plant products. For Brazilian poultry meat, it's a CHED-P.

The type matters because it determines the controls and the channel. Poultry meat is POAO, so it's a CHED-P, and POAO from a third country sits in the higher-risk end of the BTOM. "Frozen" doesn't lower the controls — frozen Brazilian poultry is still high-risk POAO with full pre-notification and BCP checks. Freezing changes the storage and the perishability maths; it does not downgrade the SPS category.

You raise the CHED-P by completing the pre-notification in IPAFFS. The system issues a reference. When the goods arrive, port health uses that CHED-P to manage the checks and, ultimately, to record the decision — released, held, or rejected.

When do you raise the IPAFFS pre-notification, and how long before arrival?

You raise the CHED-P in IPAFFS before the consignment arrives, within the pre-notification window set for the commodity and risk category — and the timing is fixed, not flexible. Raise it too late and the consignment can't be presented for checks on arrival. Build the deadline into your shipping plan rather than treating it as an arrival-day task.

Walk your poultry consignment backwards from the BCP: which step raises the CHED-P, and how many hours before arrival? The BTOM sorts poultry meat into a risk category that sets both your check frequency and your pre-notification window. You need to confirm the current required notice period for your commodity — it's the kind of parameter that's set by the live border model and can be updated, so don't run on a half-remembered figure. The discipline is the same regardless of the exact number: the pre-notification has to be in, complete and correct, before the goods present at the BCP.

Two practical points operations leads miss under pressure. First, the EHC reference and details have to be in the IPAFFS entry — so the certificate (or its details) need to be in your hands in time to pre-notify. Second, booking the BCP slot is your importer's job, not the haulier's — assume the truck just turns up and you'll meet a hold. The pre-notification, the BCP booking and the haulier's plan all have to align on the same arrival window.

Which port can Brazilian poultry meat enter through?

Frozen chicken from Brazil must enter GB through a port with a BCP approved for POAO — not just any port your forwarder quotes. A Border Control Post is the designated facility where SPS checks happen, and BCPs are approved for specific categories. A BCP approved for plants won't handle your poultry; you need one approved for products of animal origin, with the right facilities (including chilled or frozen handling for temperature-controlled product).

Choose the BCP before you book the freight, because it goes on the CHED-P and it dictates the routing. If your forwarder quotes a port without a POAO-approved BCP, the consignment physically cannot be presented for its checks there. For containerised frozen poultry arriving by sea, you're looking at a port with an approved POAO BCP and the cold-chain handling to match.

What checks happen at the BCP, and who runs them?

At the BCP, the consignment faces up to three checks: a documentary check (the paperwork), an identity check (does the consignment match the documents), and a physical check (an inspection, sometimes including sampling). The FSA and port health authority run these checks — not your forwarder, and not customs.

Here's what each involves:

• Documentary check. Port health verifies the EHC, the CHED-P, and that everything reconciles — establishment number, commodity, quantities, the lot. This is where mismatches between the invoice, the certificate and the IPAFFS entry surface. Every consignment of high-risk POAO gets a documentary check.
• Identity check. A check that the goods presented are the goods described — seals, marks, the health mark on the product matching the establishment on the EHC. When port health asks for the health certificate at the BCP, you want to know exactly which IPAFFS reference (CHED-P) it maps to.
• Physical check. A hands-on inspection of the product, carried out at a frequency set by the risk category for the commodity and origin. It can include temperature checks and laboratory sampling. The physical-check rate is one of the variables the BTOM sets and can adjust — and APHA's import conditions for Brazilian poultry can carry country-specific restrictions, including controls tied to avian influenza status.

Once the checks are satisfied, port health records the release decision on the CHED-P, and the consignment can move on. If something fails, the consignment is held — and for chilled or frozen product, the clock and the cost start to matter quickly.

A worked example: a container of frozen Brazilian chicken

Walk a single consignment through the whole process to see how the pieces connect.

You're buying 26 tonnes of frozen chicken breast from a Brazilian supplier, arriving by sea into GB.

1. Before you buy: you confirm the supplying establishment is on the GB-approved list for the commodity, and you note its approval number. You confirm Brazil's current eligibility for poultry meat hasn't changed on disease-status grounds.
2. Classify: you settle the commodity code for frozen chicken cuts with your customs agent. This drives duty and confirms the SPS measures that apply.
3. Certify: your supplier arranges for Brazil's official veterinarian to issue and sign the EHC against the GB model certificate for poultry meat. You check the establishment number on the certificate matches the health mark on the product and the approved-list entry.
4. Pick the BCP: you choose a port with a POAO-approved BCP and frozen handling, and confirm with your forwarder that the freight routes there.
5. Pre-notify: ahead of arrival, within the required window, you (or your agent) raise the pre-notification in IPAFFS, entering the commodity code, EHC reference, establishment and BCP. This generates the CHED-P.
6. Book the BCP slot: you book the inspection slot — your responsibility — and align it with the haulier's plan and the vessel's ETA.
7. Declare to customs: in parallel, your agent submits the customs declaration through CDS with the commodity code, declaring duty and VAT.
8. On arrival: the consignment presents at the BCP. Port health and the FSA run the documentary and identity checks; the physical check applies at the set frequency. Everything reconciles.
9. Release: port health records the release decision on the CHED-P. The frozen chicken moves to your cold store.

Get every field aligned before the vessel sails and this is uneventful. Miss the pre-notification window, route to the wrong port, or ship against an EHC with a mismatched establishment number, and step 8 becomes a hold.

Where do consignments actually go wrong?

A perishable poultry hold compounds by the hour — the time to check your documents is before the vessel sails, not at the BCP. The recurring failure points are predictable: an establishment not on the GB-approved list, an EHC with the wrong attestations or a mismatched establishment number, a late or incomplete IPAFFS pre-notification, the wrong commodity code, a port without a POAO-approved BCP, or a BCP slot nobody booked.

Almost all of these are fixable upstream and almost none are fixable at the border. The EHC has to be right when Brazil's vet signs it. The pre-notification has to be in within the window. The establishment has to be eligible at the time of certification — and Brazil's avian influenza status can change which establishments and regions are eligible, so what cleared last quarter may not clear today. The work that protects a perishable consignment happens before it leaves Brazil, not when it docks.

That's the whole reason to map the chain backwards from the BCP at the planning stage: identify which party does each step, by when, and against which document — then check the pack against those fields before anything moves.

Bringing it together

Importing poultry meat from Brazil to the UK is two parallel jobs done well: the customs entry, and the SPS chain of establishment approval → EHC → IPAFFS pre-notification → CHED-P → BCP checks → release. None of the SPS steps is optional for high-risk POAO, frozen or not, and the documents have to agree with each other and with the goods. The systems are precise, but they're knowable — and every failure point sits upstream of the border, where you can still do something about it.

Borders are complicated. We aren't. We live in the detail so you don't.

Something held, or moving soon? The Falsum Helpdesk triages live customs & SPS issues — support.falsum.co.uk. Tell us the goods and the route, and we'll tell you exactly what you need.

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