Sourcing berries and exotic fruit from China

Fresh-fruit duty and border controls

Read from the UK Trade Tariff on 17 November 2026, heading 0810 covers other fresh fruit, including berries, kiwifruit, persimmons and dragon fruit. Chinese-origin strawberries carry 10%, raspberries and persimmons 8%, and American cranberries and highbush blueberries 2%. Dragon fruit and passion fruit carry 0%. Kiwifruit has an ordinary rate of 8% and an autonomous suspension to 0%, excluding mixtures, preparations and products containing different components. No anti-dumping or countervailing duties are recorded.

The tariff attaches organic-product import controls to every line, and both HMI conformity certification and Certificate of Conformity controls to strawberries and kiwifruit. It also attaches a Unit price measure to raspberries and kiwifruit; ask your customs broker to confirm its application. For organic fruit imported from China into Great Britain, obtain a Great Britain certificate of inspection for each consignment.

Goods subject to Specific Marketing Standards need a certificate of conformity before entering Great Britain. Ask your broker to confirm the certification and notification arrangements for your strawberries or kiwifruit. This guide's import procedures concern Great Britain; obtain separate advice for Northern Ireland. Confirm the botanical species, fresh condition and commodity code before ordering.

Specify ripeness, firmness and the cold chain

Specify botanical species, variety, growing area, harvest maturity, fruit size, firmness, sweetness, permitted defects and pack weight. For persimmons, agree whether fruit should arrive firm or ready to eat and whether astringency treatment is needed. For berries, agree acceptable softness and leakage; for dragon fruit, specify flesh colour and skin condition.

Agree a fruit-specific cooling, transport and arrival-temperature plan with the packhouse. Ask for harvest and packing records, pesticide-use records and lot-linked laboratory reports. Specify the packaging ventilation, stacking pattern and arrival acceptance criteria before approving the shipment.

Fresh fruit must meet applicable marketing quality and labelling requirements. Confirm the plant-health risk category for the exact fruit and Chinese origin before booking transport. Medium B risk fruit requires a phytosanitary certificate; ask your broker to confirm the documents and border arrangements for your actual consignment.

Worked duty example

Illustrative example, not a quote: 5 tonnes of fresh persimmons; illustrative order under 0810 70 00 00, invoiced at £20,000 free on board, with £3,800 of freight and insurance to the UK. The customs value is £23,800. Duty at 8% is £1,904. Import VAT at 20% is charged on the customs value plus duty, £25,704, so it is £5,140.80. Import taxes total £7,044.80; a VAT-registered importer can usually reclaim the VAT, so the lasting cost is the £1,904 of duty. The import duty and VAT guide explains each step. This assumes the goods are standard-rated for VAT. Most food for human consumption is zero-rated, and animal feed can be too, in which case no import VAT is due, so check the rate for your product in HMRC's VAT Notice 701/14.

Inspection checklist

Identity: compare species, variety, flesh colour, size grading and pack weights with the purchase specification.

Condition: sample fruit from different cartons for mould, bruising, split skins, leakage and firmness. Cut persimmons to check internal browning and assess astringency.

Cold chain: compare arrival pulp temperatures and logger records with the agreed transport plan; inspect wet cartons, condensation and crushed lower layers.

Records: match carton lot marks to harvest, packing and laboratory records, and check origin wording and certificate details against the consignment. Use the quality inspection guide to organise checks.

What goes wrong

Fruit can look sound at packing but arrive soft, leaking or mouldy after delayed cooling or rough handling. Firm persimmons may still be astringent, while apparently intact fruit can have internal browning. Use arrival acceptance criteria and representative cut-fruit checks, rather than photographs alone.

A common fruit name can hide a different botanical species and tariff line. Organic paperwork and marketing conformity certification also serve different purposes. Resolve the code and document requirements before dispatch, and agree how rejected or deteriorated fruit will be recorded and handled.

Cambridge China Bridge sources these products for UK businesses, checking the factory and the documents before shipment. See factory verification. For repeat volumes, see container programmes.