I’ve just remembered a story my man shape told. He was early 20s and wizzing around France working for camping companies. He went to visit Me-mere near Melun. She was quite elderly at the time and was insisting that he took a HUGE brie de Melun back to the UK for his mother. He explained a good few times that he couldn’t as he still had a week of being in France before he returned to the UK. She loaded him up with beers (for the road lol!!) and other things to take to her daughter. He put it all in the boot but had his bag on the back seat so didn’t go back into the boot until he got back to Yorkshire. When he opened the boot he was hit by a huge smell (bearing in mind he HATES cheese!). Turned out that the huge wheel of brie was hidden in the back of the boot by the octogenarian 
MIIL was apparently thrilled as it was ‘just right’
I used to go back to school in Scotland at the end of the summer with my hand luggage stuffed with cheese and saucisson, a bottle of nuoc mam and a big jar of ground roasted salted sesame seeds. Survival rations 
Even in the old days (prior to 2021) British artisanal cheesemakers’ produce possibly never ever got beyond Paris, and now that export trade seems to have collapsed with only industrial grade cheddar being exported to the EU. It’s probably no consolation, but when we still had homes in the UK and France, we found that hard local French cheeses like Cantal didn’t seem to travel well to Cumbria, and so it was preferable to eat local Cumbrian cheesemakers (not literally - that would have been illegal!)
I had a cheese crisis at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport Terminal 3 when our plane was 3 hours late 28 degrees outside about 35 degrees inside when some hard cheese I had in my hand luggage melted in the heat in the long wait.
A female officer on the machines (they’re always the worst) wanted to confiscate it as soft cheese which it wasn’t. Well, it wasn’t till 3 hours in 35 degrees. Eventually I was allowed to proceed but it was a long discussion.
I went back to school with my sports clothes, Jock-Strap and rugby boots in a plastic bag that had been in the gdn shed for the holidays, still as they were at the end of the previous term.
My mum used to say, as an A & E/Surgical theatre nurse, “I’m prepared to out you back together again [but please - not the teeth] but I’m not washing that filthy lot”.
One has to be careful, as a standard-issue jocular Englishman, about people’s misfortunes at Customs.
The Afghan in front of me had his bottle of water dispense itself all over the belt in front of the Customs officer at Peshawar airport, Pakistan. Haj was in process and he may well have been returning from Mecca.
“Oh dear!” I quip. “All the way from Mecca and it’s burst at Peshawar Customs!”
If looks could kill …
Probably an illegal cargo under the terms of the BWC
Probably ready to call the local hazmat team when she opened the bag 
Maybe CITES!
I was in Grand Frais the other day and they had truckles of English farmhouse cheddar, both whole and sliced across in large rounds. Good thick rind and a lovely taste; I wish I had bought more as it is a bit of a schlep away from us. First time I have seen it there, mind.
Auchan at Bordeaux Lac had Snowdonia Cheese Co Black Bomber this week = happy days!
Came over just over a week ago. We were searched in Portsmouth before boarding - French border police have a presence there. Ours wasn’t particularly rigorous, but others seemed more so. Some vehicles weren’t searched at all.
Hello Michael, did they have a dog or was it purely a human searcg please?
Regards Mike
There was a dog, but they didn’t use it with us… they did on the van in front.
OKDOK thanks.
Dogs trained to sniff cheese or maybe sausage and bacon. 
Most ports have people walking round with sniffer dogs - but depends what they are trained to detect! Mainly drugs and hidden people I would imagine, but now have dogs trained to sniff out covid so could be anything!
We have a newish Grand Frais 15km away in 22, it’s now a regular call for unusual fresh products, lots of cheese from out side France, including excellent Red Leicester, Stilton and more than one cheddar.
As regards bringing known restricted goods in…methinks it’s bit risky as if you were found out then given data base technology your car/you could be recorded as a “person of interest” and be routinely searched in the future.
When such restrictions were in place pre-single market in the early 1990s such technology was not used.
Too risky now!
We’ve been searched occasionally in the past but it seems it was then related to security and weapons rather than customs
They did ask questions about weapons, drugs and whether we’d packed the van ourselves - as you say, that’s always been par for the course when searched.
I came through Caen about a week and a half ago, on a Sunday morning and there were no checks of any cars at all…just people’s Passports and COVID documents.