The source table is mostly a map of roads
The figures here are mirror data: this market does not report its own imports, so each column is what everyone else recorded shipping to it. On 2024 figures chocolate is about 12,427,589 US dollars, sugar confectionery about 55,242,642.
The top of each column reads as geography: a land neighbour heads both, 25.4 per cent of the chocolate and 41.6 of the confectionery; Kenya 17.6, South Africa 12.8. Only Belgium at 16.0 and India at 19.3 are sea routes. A mirror entry records where a consignment was dispatched from, not where it was made: a neighbour heading a column means the carton changed hands before the border.
Three legs, and only the first is short
Our factory is in Gaziantep and Mersin port is about three hours away by road, so loading sitsinside a narrow window.
The run after discharge is the part to plan. Chocolate and chocolate-coated lines are quoted in a reefer through the warm months, and a reefer works while the box is plugged in, not while it waits at a post. Turkish delight, dragées, hard and chewy confectionery and jellies travel dry, take an overland run better, and still share a container with chilled lines.
Four terms, and where each hands the box over
FCA Gaziantep hands over loaded at origin, and everything past the gate is yours. FOB Mersin carries them to the port of loading, that short road leg. CIF covers the sea and stops at the discharge port, the overland stretch still ahead of you. DAP is the only one of the four naming a delivery point inland.
The offer names the term, the discharge port quoted against, and where our responsibility ends.
Two desks file, and neither of them is ours
The importer holding the registration declares the consignment and answers for the description. Where the box travels on and crosses a post, the agent you instruct files that movement. The customs file is national, and the offer states what applies on the day.
Our side is the paperwork both desks must accept: the technical data sheet per product, our certificates, the analysisreport per line. Certificates are issued for our factory: copies are available on request, the certifying body named. Gelatine lines carry our halal certificate where your trade needs it.
French on the panel, one description everywhere
Mandatory content is prepared in French, English alongside where your file wants it: the food name, ingredients with allergens, metric net weight, the importer’s name and address, date marking. Own-label content comes from our technical data sheet and is checked against your artworkbefore printing: a printed carton cannot be fixed at a border.
It has to hold on the invoice too, and shelf words complicate that: the most searched English word here, éclairs at about 390 a month, covers a pastry and a filled chewy sweet alike. Name the format; we confirm the matching line. A vegetable-fat coating is a compound or a glaze — in the European Union it cannot be labelled chocolate at all — and the jar line is a spread.
What to send so the road can be priced
Send the lines you want quoted and the format for each — wrapped bar, tablet, doypack, kilo carton, printed box or jar — with an indicative quantity, the discharge port you work through, the inland delivery point and whose brand goes on the box.
Ask for it on two terms, DAP against CIF: the gap between them is the overland leg you would otherwise buy separately. One container carries chocolate, dragées, Turkish delight, wrapped confectionery and jars on one order and one document set (mixed container). Couverture, bulk chocolate, raw nuts, baklava, halva and tahini sit outside the range: sourced on request, composition and format confirmed before quoting.
We clear at the port but the warehouse is a long way inland. Which term reaches it?
DAP is the one of the four that names an inland delivery point, so the overland stretch is priced rather than left open. CIF stops at the discharge port with that run still ahead of you, while FCA Gaziantep and FOB Mersin hand over earlier and suit a buyer whose own forwarder controls the corridor. Ask for one list on two terms and compare what moves between them.
Who files what once the container has been discharged?
The importer holding the registration files the entry and answers for the description given; where the consignment travels on and crosses a post to reach you, the agent you instruct files that movement. From our side you receive the technical data sheet per product, our certificates, the analysisreport per line. Certificates are issued for our factory, and theorigin document and the applicable rules are named in the offer in the form valid on the day.
Does chocolate survive the overland stretch?
Chocolate and chocolate-coated lines are quoted in a reefer through the warm months, and the question to settle before loading is what happens between discharge and your yard, since that is where a reefer is least likely to be plugged in. Turkish delight, dragées, hard and chewy confectionery and jellies travel dry and share the same container. Where the final stretch is genuinely hot, compound-coated lines hold up better — and they are quoted, labelled and priced as compound, never as chocolate.
