One container, two desks and the truck in between

Where the goods stop being ours

Four terms are quoted, and each answers one question: where does the consignment stop being our risk and become yours? FCA Gaziantep hands it over loaded at our factory gate; FOB Mersin carries it to the ship; CIF adds the ocean leg to the port you nominate.

DAP goes past the water to an address you write down, the only term that prices the truck for an inland buyer instead of leaving that leg to surface later. Ask for two terms at once: the gap between them is the road leg, priced.

The first three hours are ours

The producers are in Gaziantep and the coast at Mersin is about three hours away by road. That short first leg is what makes a mixed load workable: cartons from our own factory meet in one bay,are checked against the packing list and leave as one box rather than four separate shipments (mixed container).

After that the box belongs to the route. Tell us the port you clear through and how many days the inland run takes: the first fixes the schedule, the second can change what goes in the box.

Read the origin column as a map, not a verdict

On the declarations for 2024, 736,368 US dollars of chocolate and 1,213,881 of sugar confectionery entered the country, and Cameroon stands at 94.8 per cent of the first column and 72.3 per cent of the second. Inland, a share that size partly describes the road: papers are raised where a consignment was bought, not necessarily where it was made.

The confectionery column is more useful here: the United Arab Emirates sits at 14.8 per cent and Morocco at 6.7 per cent. Neither is a neighbour, so goods loaded well outside the region already arrive, clear and reach the shelf.

Declared at the water, declared again where it stops

A consignment that lands at a foreign port and carries on inland passes more than one desk. At the coast it usually moves under transit rather than being entered for home use; the declaration that sets your landed cost is made where the goods come to rest. The importer files it and stands behind the description.

So the offer names the port of entry, the delivery term, who arranges the inland haul, the transit paperwork and the office where the entry is lodged, with the origin document and applicable rules as they stand on the day.

The heat sits on the truck, not on the water

A box on the water is cool; a road under sun is not, and that decides a chocolate line. Chocolate and chocolate-coated products are quoted in refrigerated equipment through the warm months; Turkish delight, dragées, jellies and wrapped sugar lines travel dry. Both kinds share one container.

If the inland stretch is long or your store is not cooled, say so before the order: it can change what we would load. A vegetable-fat coating holds warmth better, and is then called a compound or a glaze wherever it is written. In the European Union such a coating cannot be labelled chocolate.

French on the panel, and what to send now

The mandatory panel is French, with English alongside where the shelf wants it: the name of the food, ingredients and allergens, metric net weight, storage, the importer’s name and address and the date marking. Own-label content is built from our data sheet and checked against yourartwork before printing; the jarred line is a spread.

So send the references you want priced, the format of each, an indicative quantity, the port of entry, the inland address and whose name goes on the wrapper. Couverture, bulk chocolate by the kilo, raw nuts, cocoa and tahini are sourced on request: we confirm composition and format before quoting (how we work).