Nouakchott - Post Report Question and Answers
What household or grocery items do you wish you had shipped to post?
Liquids. We shipped them in our consumables but still found ourselves longing for a few things. Otherwise the pouch is solid and easy to get dried goods in quickly (like 10 days). The employee association has a decent store that stocks beer, wine, spirits, and mixers, and you are also able to order through their vendor 4 times a year if there is something more specific you want. If there are expensive American beers you can’t live without, add them to your consumables. The vendor stocks them but American craft beers will often be marked up 200%. European brands of beer/wine/liquor will often be cheaper than the what you would pay in the US or Europe. - Jan 2023
Condiments, sauces, salsas, ingredients for Asian food, peanut butter, good coffee, alcohol (including mixers, etc). Restaurant options are very limited and mediocre quality, so having a lot of a wide range of ingredients to cook at home is important. This is a dry country and the only options for buying alcohol for diplomats or other expats are subject to arbitrary disruption and delay. - Aug 2021
Everything, lol. - Aug 2021
I was happy to have shipped bbq sauces, hot sauces, brown sugar, beef jerky, maple syrup, Dr. Pepper, A&W root beer, American cereals, bread and butter pickles, dill pickles, canned fruits, Gatorade mix, canned pineapples, canned pears, a variety of spices, hot wing sauce, and different Tabascos/Cholula/Zapatio hot sauce. Old Bay is important too for seafood, as are Cajun seasonings for fish. - Sep 2020
Vanilla for cooking, as I've only been able to find imitation vanilla in the America store. We shipped in diapers and household paper products. Lower quality is available locally. I buy flour locally, but many people ship in since if it sits too long on the grocery shelf, it gets bugs. We also shipped in all our vitamins/supplements and the brands that we simply got used to using over the years. We didn't use our consumables shipment, but got most things locally or via DPO and we survived just fine. - Apr 2019
I would ship all liquid consumables since this is a pouch-only post. Condiments, toiletries, peanut butter, birthday presents for kids parties. Candy (not chocolate), snacks, popcorn. Max out your consumables and ship all you can. If you find you don't need it, someone else will probably take it off your hands. - May 2016
Baking items including food coloring, hot sauce (there is a local one there that is awesome!!!), ship dog and cat food, Ziploc bags, paper towels and toilet paper, gourmet items if you use them, when to go - take a cooler full of pork items - including bacon. You will not find pork or alcohol on the economy. Wine and spirits if you want those - PJ does ship about once a quarter - it is expensive. - Dec 2015
Alcohol.... Lots of alcohol. - Apr 2014
You can find most anything, but not regularly. For example, sometimes there are cake mixes at one store, but not always. If you have a favorite canned good or boxed item, bring it. - Aug 2011
Pork/bacon/sausage...(in a cooler with me on the plane). - Dec 2009
