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Ketchup
If you’re a distributor of supermarket products across the globe, then note that you will find no lover of Ketchup in France.
“We have to ensure that children become familiar with French recipes so that they can hand them down to the following generation,” explained National Association of Directors of Collective Restaurants Christophe Hebert the man behind the ban. We have to stop children from being able to serve those sauces. Children have a tendency to use them to mask the taste of whatever they are eating.
OK, most mother’s complain about children using condiments on food they’ve taken the time and effort to perfect, but the reason behind possibly one of the craziest modern prohibitions is far more worse than ruining your mother’s cooking.
It seems that Ketchup is a cultural threat.
Chocolates stuffed with “non-nutritive objects
Any chocolate/toy combination that you may have created to beat the Kinder egg hype will be whisked away upon entry to the US.
Not only is there a ban on candies embedded with toys, which started in 1938 in order to protect children from accidentally swallowing them, there’s also a law requiring any toy accompanied with sweets to be safe for children of all ages.
Of course, there’s been much hype and debate about how to work around the ban.
Jelly sweets
Another form of candy featuring on the banned list is jelly sweets. Apparently they contain a thickening agent called konjac on the basis that they pose a choking hazard.
In a statement, it was suggested that the ban follows an EU prohibition in 2002 on the sale of mini cup sweets containing Konjac which was linked to a number of deaths of children and elderly people worldwide.
Humorously, it seems that the Food Standard Agency has to write to numerous authorities in the UK, reminding them that Britain itself has placed an import ban on it. This also includes the rest of the EU.
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Haggis
Hagis has been outlawed in the US since 1971 because the food standards agency prohibits sheep lungs in food products.
There have previously been stories of at least 6m Americans of Scottish decent attempting to smuggle in haggis for Burns night and the Scottish government is still keen on trying to overturn their decision.
In the mean time, the US tried to come up with their own version, without sheep and without much success.
“It was a silly ban which meant a lot of people have never tasted the real thing,” said Margaret Frost, of the Scottish American Society in Ohio. “We have had to put up with the US version, which is made from beef and is bloody awful.”
Read on to find out what else is off limits.
Additional vitamins
In Denmark there seem to be a fear of fortified food. 2004 saw the beginning of the restriction on any food products containing added vitamins and minerals. This has included certain cereals and even Marmite as it contains vitamin B.
If this is your forte then beware that the Danish sell some products that have been approved by the government. But gaining approval there will mean paying a large sum to the regulatory body.
According to Marianne Orum, owner of a Danish shop trying to sell Marmite, “all the English people here are shaking their heads in disbelief and say that it is insane.”
Emo clothes
If you’re a retailer then take extra care with any clothes you send Russia’s way. According to the government, emo clothes are a national threat to stability and is seen to be the main link to high suicide rates and depression among teens.
That’s right, there’s a bill against the dangerous teen trend that is emo clothing.
According to an advisor of one of the bill sponsors, “the point of the bill is so that by 2020, Moscow will have someone to rule its government.”
Games and consoles
For any tech company looking for a new market to test games or consoles then count China and Greece out.
In 2002, Greece banned all electronic games which spanned from console games to your ordinary solitaire.
According to a CNEt report: The blanket ban was decided in February after the government admitted it was incapable of distinguishing innocuous video games from illegal gambling machines.
China did much the same thing in 2000, when they thought that youngsters were wasting too much of their time.
Matching shoes
According to DHL, be prepared to send shoes one at a time because of they catch them in pairs at the border they’ll instantly be separated.
It sounds odd, but three countries have made it law! You’re not allowed to send a pair of matching shoes to South Africa, Mexico or India.
Western food
Russia hit the EU, Australia, Canada, Norway and the US with a full embargo on food imports, which was clearly politically motivated . In other words, due to sanctions over Ukraine. This has hit the UK big time considering that it’s the EU’s second-biggest market for food exports.
This comes after EU pork was banned at the start of the Ukraine crisis.
The good news, however, is that according to Dmitry Medvedev the ban will only last for one year.