One market, two tables, both single-sourced
Read apart, the figures look like unrelated markets. Read together they describe one habit. On each shelf the leading origin carries about three quarters of the value, which is what a settled supply chain looks like: a route established, specifications accepted, little reason to rebuild while deliveries arrive.
What differs is which side of it we stand on. In confectionery the settled route runs from Turkey and we sit inside it. In chocolate it runs from Western Europe, and 1.3% is not a position — it is a sample, or a line that entered once and never returned.
A second source is taken for continuity, not price
Where one origin holds three quarters of a shelf, the argument that opens a conversation is rarely a lower number. An office running the same European supply for years knows its landed cost and will not reopen a tender to shave it. What it lacks is an alternative already tested.
The exposure on a concentrated shelf is not expense but a gap: a reference discontinued upstream, a production window full, freight rerouted. The buyer meets it the day a replenishment does not arrive. A source sampled, specified and quoted in writing beforehand is insurance against that day.
The door is already open: same importer, same container
That 74.3% means something concrete for the chocolate conversation. The companies able to receive a chocolate line here often already receive Turkish goods: consignee established, broker established, the road from Gaziantep to Mersin already in use for another carton.
So the step is not entry into a new market. It is a new line on a file that exists — lokum and dragée filling part of the load, a coated or chocolate line taking the rest, one container and one entry. That is the cheapest way to learn whether a chocolate line moves here (mixed container).
Where the buyer looks today, and what the view costs
Search in Arabic and the shelf that comes back is Gulf and Saudi online retail: finished packs, consumer prices, no Algerian address on the page. Search in French and the results are wholesalers in France and Spain. Search in English and what appears is trade-statistics sites rather than suppliers.
None of those is a production floor. Each is a window onto somebody else’s stock, with a margin added before the buyer sees it. A container taken direct removes one hand from that chain — on a shelf where three quarters arrives through one European route, the only variable genuinely open.
What decides which shelf a line lands on
The two tables are separated by composition, not taste, and that is worth settling before a sample ships. A cocoa-butter chocolate and a vegetable-fat coating are different products: a glaze cannot be written as chocolate, and the offer states which each line carries. A dragée may be sugar-panned or chocolate-centred; the jar product is a spread.
Handling splits the same way. Chocolate and chocolate-coated lines move temperature-controlled at +18 to +20 °C, while lokum, dragée and jelly travel dry all year, so a load is planned by temperature first. The proposed tariff heading, the origin document and the rules that apply are named in the offer.
What to send so an answer can be written
Certificates are issued for our factory.
Send the lines you want quoted, the format for each — bulk carton, retail box or jar — an indicative quantity, the port of arrival, and whether the label carries your own brand; nothing is printed without written approval. The reply comes back line by line: specification, allergens, net weight, carton and pallet data, minimum and heading. We quote FCA Gaziantep, FOB Mersin, CIF or DAP; Gaziantep to Mersin is about three hours by road (how we work). Anything outside the range is sourced on request, confirmed beforequoting.
Turkey already leads the confectionery table here. Why add a Turkish chocolate line?
Because the two tables are separate. Chocolate arriving in Algeria is concentrated on one European origin at 74.9%, and a shelf that concentrated has no tested alternative behind it. Adding a line through an importer who already clears Turkish confectionery uses a file that exists rather than opening a new one.
Can chocolate and lokum travel in the same container?
They can, but the load is planned by temperature first. Chocolate and chocolate-coated lines are quoted temperature-controlled at +18 to +20 °C; lokum, dragée and jelly go dry through the year. The offer states which lines sit in which condition before the load is built.
Who is responsible for the customs entry and the duty payable?
The Algerian importer of record files the entry and answers for the description given, and duty is read on the day of clearance rather than quoted in an article. Our offer names the proposed tariff heading per line, and the origin document and the rules that apply are named in the offer as well.
