Whose bookkeeping this actually is
A mirror table is other people’s accounting. Every exporting country’s record of what it sent here is added up, and the sum stands in for a statement this market never published. The arithmetic is sound; the coverage is not.
A country that files late, or files nothing at all, vanishes from the sum, and every share beside it shifts. Take what follows as a direction rather than a settled figure: it is published because it changes what can honestly be claimed here, not because it is exact.
The chocolate column and its settled order
Chocolate, heading 1806, comes to 3,991,544 US dollars, and three origins cover most of it: France at 60.7 per cent, the Netherlands at 13.5, Türkiye third at 10.8. Two of those three sit in the same European supply basin — a shelf filled by habit rather than by tender.
An order that settled years ago is not overturned by an argument. What the figure does settle is the origin question: roughly a tenth of the chocolate landing here in 2024 was already Turkish, so the route, the paperwork and the shelf are not new here.
The sweet column and its three continents
Sugar confectionery, heading 1704, comes to 2,440,130 US dollars — the smaller of the pair — and its table looks nothing like the other one. Tunisia stands at 20.6 per cent, Colombia at 19.3, France at 15.6, with Türkiye seventh at 5.08.
North Africa, South America and Europe hold the first three places, and the largest sits barely above a fifth of the column. A table shaped that way is bought deal by deal, a quotation accepted one season and another the next. Two of those origins also lie at the end of a long sea leg, where loads are gathered and re-gathered on the way.
Third on one column, seventh on the other
The same production base stands behind both Turkish figures, so the distance between third and seventh says nothing about the product. It is what two differently shaped tables do to a ranking.
A column with one origin above 60.7 per cent leaves a short tail, so about a tenth of it still reaches third place. A column split three ways near 20 per cent leaves a crowded middle, where a smaller share buys a lower position. Carry 10.77 and 5.08 into a meeting rather than the rankings.
What the table cannot see
A trade table records where a consignment was dispatched from. It does not record how many hands it passed through, and those hands are priced into your carton. An origin can be a production base answering an order or a staging point where loads are assembled and sent on; the column reads identically either way.
Nor can it see format. The same dollar buys a bulk carton or a printed retail box — different businesses, different margins. Ask any offer, this one included, which it is quoting.
Turning two columns into one container
Neither column argues for a standing monthly programme; both argue for one planned load. One container can mix chocolate, dragées, Turkish delight, wrapped confectionery and spreads in jars from our own factory on one order and one document set, with the minimum per line rather than per container (mixed container).
Send the references you want priced, the format and case weight for each, an indicative quantity and where the container should be handed over. The offer comes back line by line: ingredients and allergens, net weight, case and pallet data and delivery term. Terms are FCA Gaziantep, FOB Mersin, CIF or DAP, and Mersin is about three hours from our factory by road (how wework).
How firm are the figures on this page?
They are mirror figures for 2024 and they are labelled as such, because this market does not report its own imports. The 3,991,544 US dollars of chocolate and the 2,440,130 of sugar confectionery are what the rest of the world recorded as shipments here, added together, so a partner reporting late or partially moves every share in the table. Read the ranking as a direction rather than a settled total.
Türkiye is already third in the chocolate column. What is still open, then?
Not the origin. At roughly 10.77 per cent of the 2024 chocolate column, Turkish product already arrives here and already moves off the shelf, so nobody needs persuading that it belongs. What is left to decide is smaller and settled one order at a time: which reference, in which case weight, whose name goes on the wrapper, how short the chain from the production line to your door runs, and how much of that stands in writing before anything is made rather than agreed on a call and remembered differently afterwards.
Can you supply the sweet column the way it arrives today?
In part, and the exact answer is the useful one here. Sugared almonds and chocolate dragées, coated nuts, Turkish delight, jellies and wrapped confectionery are made in our own factory, and each is priced as its own line with case weight and format written out. Couverture, bulk chocolate by the kilo, raw nuts, dried fruit, cocoa, halva, tahini and baklava sit outside it: sourced on request, and we confirm composition and format before quoting. A coating made with vegetable fat is named ascompound on the pack, the technical data sheet and the price list, never as chocolate, and the jar line is a spread.
