Sourcing cooked chicken and meat products from China

Duty and the tariff quota

Read from the UK Trade Tariff on 25 September 2026, prepared poultry products of chicken, cooked, with 57% or more poultry meat, carried a third-country duty of £856 per 1,000 kg on goods from China, and a non-preferential tariff quota at 8% was open on the same code. A quota rate applies only while the quota has volume left and must be claimed on the declaration, and this quota is licence-managed: a check on 27 September 2026 found it needs an AGRIM import licence carrying the required entries (document code L001), so apply for the licence before the goods ship or the £856 per tonne rate applies.

A specific duty per tonne means the effective percentage falls as the price per kilo rises, so work out the landed price per kilo both inside and outside the quota. Confirm the commodity code by poultry content and whether the product is cooked.

Approved plants and the border

Products of animal origin can be imported into Great Britain only from countries approved to export the commodity, from approved establishments, and with the model health certificate published on GOV.UK. The consignment must be notified in IPAFFS at least one working day before arrival and imported through a border control post specific to the commodity, where it is checked and a charge is made. For cooked duck, see our cooked duck sourcing guide. For the reverse trade route, see our guide to exporting UK processed meat to China. For pork belly import eligibility, see our fully cooked pork belly guide. For goose, see our fully cooked goose sourcing guide.

For cooked chicken, that makes the plant's approval the first thing to check: ask for its approval number for Great Britain and confirm it before any sample order, because an unapproved plant cannot ship at all. For canned meat sourcing, see our canned luncheon meat guide. For canned corned beef, see our canned corned beef sourcing guide.

Food labelling and specification

Food sold in the UK carries the name of the food, the ingredients with allergens emphasised, the net quantity, the storage conditions, the date mark and the name and UK address of the food business. Agree the label with the factory and check it against the food contact and labelling requirements your customers set.

Specify the recipe, meat content, cooking temperature and time, freezing, and microbiological criteria, and ask for the plant's certificates and test results for each batch. For chicken feet, see our cooked chicken feet sourcing guide. For wings, see our fully cooked chicken wings sourcing guide.

Worked duty example

An invented example: 20,000 kg of cooked frozen chicken products under 1602 32 19 90, bought for £60,000 free on board with £6,000 of refrigerated freight and insurance, so the customs value is £66,000. Outside the quota the specific duty of £856 per 1,000 kg comes to £17,120, about 26% of the value. Inside the non-preferential tariff quota at 8% it would be £5,280, if volume is left when the goods are declared. Most food is zero-rated for VAT, so no import VAT is due on these products either way, and the duty is the whole tax. The import duty and VAT guide explains each step.

Inspection checklist

Microbiology: test each production batch for Listeria monocytogenes to ISO 11290-1 and Salmonella to ISO 6579-1 against the food safety criteria for ready-to-eat foods in retained Regulation (EC) No 2073/2005, and hold the batch until results are in. For ready-to-eat seafood sourcing, see our cooked shrimp and shellfish guide.

Frozen condition and weight: check core temperature on arrival is at or below the −18 °C required for quick-frozen foods, and weigh a sample of packs against the declared quantity under the Weights and Measures (Packaged Goods) Regulations 2006.

Meat content and foreign bodies: verify the declared chicken percentage by nitrogen-based meat content analysis on retained samples, and check the plant's metal detector and X-ray records for the production run.

What goes wrong

Cooked chicken imports fail at the border before they fail on quality. The plant is not on the list approved for Great Britain, the health certificate uses the wrong model or has errors, or the IPAFFS notification is late, and the consignment is held or rejected at the border control post. Temperature records show the container warmed in transit, labels miss the quantity of chicken or emphasise allergens wrongly, and batch tests for salmonella or listeria are missing.

Check the plant's approval number on the published list before sampling, have the health certificate draft checked against the current model before loading, notify in IPAFFS in time, specify and verify meat content, cooking temperature and microbiological limits per batch, require a continuous temperature logger in each container, and check labels for the quantity of chicken, allergens and the UK business address.

Cold chain and inspection

Cooked frozen chicken must stay frozen from the plant to the UK store, so agree the storage temperature, the container setting and the temperature record, and check them at the container loading.

Cambridge China Bridge sources cooked chicken and meat products from approved plants, with the health certificates, labels, tariff quota and cold chain arranged before shipment. See how our sourcing service works.

Related guides: Sourcing honey from China, Sourcing frozen shrimp and crayfish from China and Cooked shrimp and shellfish from China. For prepared fish purchases, see our guide to canned tuna and prepared fish. For sardines, see our canned sardine sourcing guide.