Importing confectionery to Denmark: the A.TR, the label, and who signs it

A customs union, not a free trade agreement

Türkiye and the European Union are in a customs union for industrial and processed agricultural goods. Processed confectionery under chapters 17 and 18 therefore moves on an A.TR movement certificate rather than on a EUR.1 or an origin declaration. That is the opposite of Norway next door, which sits outside the Union, where a EUR.1 under the Türkiye–EFTA agreement does the job instead.

The offer states which document travels with your container, together with the tariff line and the duty that applies on the day. Rates are not published here because they change. The certificate is endorsed on the export side, which is our part; the declaration at entry sits with the importer of record.

What the A.TR is not

The point most often misread. An A.TR is a movement certificate: it shows the goods are in free circulation inside the customs union, so they move without customs duty. It is not a proof of origin and does not state where the goods were made. Where you need origin in writing, that comes from the invoice and our documents.

The rest of the document set

Commercial invoice, packing list per pallet, A.TR movement certificate, analysis report, and an aflatoxin certificate where required. The set is prepared in Gaziantep and matched to the destination. Export clearance is ours.

The packing list runs per pallet and the pallet marks match it, so a load is checked line by line without being broken down. Certificates are held for our factory and named per line; a line without one is stated as such rather than covered by a general claim.

The Danish label, and the mandatory fields

We prepare the content from our technical data sheet to the mandatory fields of Regulation (EU) 1169/2011: ingredients with allergens indicated, the nutrition declaration per 100 g, metric net quantity, the best-before date, and the name and address of the business placing the product on the EU market. In Danish, and checked against your artwork before anything is printed.

The party named in that last field answers for the declaration. If that is you, the content has to be right before the plates are cut. The fields also have to fit the pack: the ingredient list of a filled bar is longer than the wrapper suggests, so the back panel is designed around it.

Chocolate or compound

Where a line is coated with a vegetable-fat compound rather than chocolate, EU rules do not allow it to be called chocolate on the pack. Several Dubai-style and cotton-candy bars in this category are compound-coated. We state which each line is before the artwork is made. It is a naming rule rather than a verdict on quality, but front of pack and ingredient list have to agree, so it is settled at offer stage, not after a design is finished.

Routing

Sea freight from Mersin to Aarhus, Copenhagen or Hamburg with onward haulage, or a road trailer from Gaziantep across Europe. The port of arrival and the delivery term — FCA Gaziantep, FOB Mersin, CIF or DAP — are stated in the offer together with the transit.

What to send, and what comes back

Send the references, the quantity per line and the port of arrival, and say whether you will be the business named on the pack. The written offer follows within two working days, in dollars or euros: the lines and their minimums, the delivery term and transit, the documents travelling with the container, the tariff line and the duty of the day, and per line whether the coating is chocolate or compound. Couverture, bulk chocolate, tahini, halva and baklava sit outside the core range, sourced on request and loaded in the same container.