Almost every family abroad has done one of these. You can fill a barrel or a box where you live and ship it — or you can buy the food inside Haiti, from a store or distributor in your family's own city, and have them pick it up. Both ways feed your family. They differ in time, in what arrives, and in what you can prove.
A barrel takes roughly 3 to 6 weeks from drop-off to collection, passes customs, and anything fresh spoils on the way. It carries things Haiti's shops do not stock — a favourite brand, clothes, a gift. For dry staples, though, you pay to move rice across an ocean that Haiti's own depots already sell.
You pick a package — rice, beans, oil, spaghetti, the food your family cooks weekly — and a distributor in their city prepares it under their name. They pick it up with ID, usually within days, and you receive the proof packet: the photo of the goods, the handover, the receipt.
Shipping wins for personal things and brands from abroad. Buying there wins for the weekly staples: faster, nothing spoils, nothing sits in customs, and you see proof instead of hoping. Many families end up doing both — a barrel at Christmas, packages the rest of the year.
Yes — both ways are legal and common. Shipping food has customs rules (no fresh perishables on a long sea trip); buying food inside Haiti has none of those problems because the food never crosses a border.
Our four opening cities are Cap-Haïtien, Les Cayes, Jacmel and Petit-Goâve. Check your family's city with the free coverage checker — and if it is not there yet, telling us is how it gets added.
That is the proof packet: a photo of the goods with your family's name, a photo or video of the handover, the store receipt, and your family's own confirmation. See the how-it-works page for the full standard.