Hi! I am preparing for our container to be packed this month from US to CH. I'm stocking up on provisions suggested by others. I plan on putting them in Rubbermaid totes/ containers. Looking for any suggestions from those that have done the same. Did you have any packing or transport issues? How did you handle customs declarations and fees? Thanks!

what provisions?

as long as they are of the non-perishable type you will be fine. Produce, meat, etc., on the other hand, not a good idea.

The moving company just packed what we had in our pantry into boxes, we didn't do special packaging. It was fun opening the boxes as I hadn't paid attention to all of what I had!

ps - can I put in a box or 2...

pps - bring lots of brown sugar, you can sell it to all us expats once you get here

The Rubbermaid container thing is a good idea and I wish I'd done it. Bravo. Fill them with non-prescription painkillers like Aleve, deodorant soap bars like Irish Spring (or whatever brand of soap bar you use), jars and jars and jars of all kinds of peppers, your favorite personal hygiene brands, the aforementioned brown sugar and Swanson's chicken, beef and vegetable broths in Tetra-Paks.

You can't bring meat and you can't bring Clorox and you can't bring Round-Up.

Everything else you can adapt to.

Hi, I shared this link awhile back and thought I would share it again in response to this post. Here are the allowed weight for undeclared food across the Swiss boarder. Anything over the listed amounts, you will need to declare. Good luck with your move

http://www.ezv.admin.ch/zollinfo_pri...x.html?lang=en

My friends thought I was joking when I asked them to bring some when they come to visit me...

maybe i go to different stores than everyone else but brown sugar is in every coop and migros

Visit your local Portuguese store... ask for: Rar (or green package with the elephant)... Or make your own. Get molasses from your local reformhouse. 1 tbsp molasses to 1 cup white sugar.

Our packers/movers would not pack any food, liquids (shampoos, cleaning supplies), or batteries. Which was annoying since they hadn't told us that ahead of time. They purposefully overlooked and packed a few hygiene supplies we'd stocked up on, but were pretty adamant about not packing food. So, just something to look out for if you have packers and they are more strict.

not THAT brown sugar... the brown sugar mentioned about is soft and you could even form a ball and you could throw it (like a snowball). The brown sugar in coop and migros is normal dry cane sugar. It does not stick!

Please, please, please, people, let us NOT turn this into yet another brown sugar thread.

Let the record show, ONCE AND FOR ALL, and, yes I am yelling, that there is American brown sugar and then there is Rest of World brown sugar.

This is really horrible. Agreed, it is a First World Problem, but still, monumentally horrible.

Fortunately, we didn't have toooo much food - we packed the important bits (spices, peanut butter) into our personal luggage and gave the rest to friends Switzerland causes any number of first world problems daily.

Added a couple of things!

ah americans always need to be different

we moved here from Germany and they packed up everything except for volatile or explosive items (like acetone, or gas canisters). I think even from the US to Germany we had the same experience...although I could be remembering incorrectly!

I know moving from Germany to the US alcohol was a big no-no

Apparently the British and Portuguese use it as well... and *ahem* Canadians aren't from the USA either Probably many other cultures use it as well
PS... in Germany, I always bought it in the Asian food stores

We loaded all sorts of stuff in big rubbermaid type containers. you can get almost everything here, but at ten times the cost, so if your company is footing the bill for a shipping container, stuff it full of things that you use anyway and save yourself some cash.

We didn't declare anything special, but we weren't bringing meat or dairy or whatever. mostly it was dry goods and some powdered mixes. Here are some suggestions;

Soup mixes
powdered ranch dressing mix
microwave popcorn
AA batteries
baseballs & frisbees
kool-aid mix
ramen noodles
cough drops/cold medicine
bags of the kids favorite candy
contact lens solution
shampoo
deodorant/shaving cream
spare razor blades
etc.etc.etc.

Basically, I went to wal-mart and provisioned like I was stocking a bomb shelter.

it was about $500 worth of stuff, which would have cost about $4000 here, and it made the kids transition a lot easier to have some comfort foods around.

I'm serious about the Fritos, btw. They're even scarcer than brown sugar...

Oh also,

good bicycle pump
couple of spare bike inner tubes
deflated basketball with inflation needles
ziplock bags
reynolds aluminum foil