Two legs, and the short one comes first
Our factory is in Gaziantep and Mersin port is about three hours away by road, so consolidationand loading sit inside a narrow window.
The sea leg is the long one. This is a coastal market, so a container reaches a port of entry directly rather than clearing in a neighbour first. If your warehouse sits inland of the port, the run after clearance belongs to somebody the moment the term is agreed, so name the place you unload at and not only the port you clear at.
The source columns are route columns too
On the 2024 figures this country declared, chocolate imports were about 7,957,605 US dollars and sugar confectionery about 7,248,278. The first column is a European shelf: Italy at roughly 22.0 per cent, an unspecified-areas heading at 19.4, France at 14.4, Türkiye fifth at 6.29. The second reads like whoever quoted that season: the same unspecified heading at 21.2, China at 19.6, Nigeria at 12.9, Türkiye tenth at 2.77.
Read as routes, one figure outweighs the ranking: about a fifth of each column is recorded against an origin nobody wrote down. That is a limit of the data, not an accusation, but it is what a clearing agent works against.
Four terms, and where each of them stops
FCA Gaziantep hands the goods over loaded at our factory. FOB Mersin buys the three-hour road leg and stops on board. CIF carries the sea leg to a named discharge port. DAP is the only one of the four that reaches a named place inland, and so the only one that prices the run after clearance.
Quote the same list on two terms and the gap between them is that leg. The offer names the term, the point of entry and any transshipment assumed; a term with no place attached is an argument postponed.
Two desks, and neither of them is ours
The importer holding the registration declares the consignment and answers for the description given; your clearing agent works the entry. The file is national, and the origin document and the rules that apply are named in the offer in the form valid on the day.
From our side comes what that desk has to accept: the technical data sheet per product, our certificates, theanalysis report per line. Certificates are issued for our factory, so we name the holder and the certifying body; gelatine lines travel with our halal certificate.
Chilled inside the box, French on the outside
Chocolate and chocolate-coated lines are quoted in a reefer through the warm months; Turkish delight, dragées, jellies and wrapped confectionery travel dry, and both share one container.
The mandatory panel is prepared in French, English alongside where the shelf wants it: name of the food, ingredients with allergens, metric net weight, storage conditions, the importer’s name and address, the date marking. Own-label content is drawn from our technical data sheet and checked against your artwork before printing. One word stays put: a coating made with vegetable fat is a compound or a glaze in the price list, and in the European Union it cannot be labelled chocolate. The jar line is a spread.
What to send so the route can be priced
Send the lines you want quoted with a format against each, wrapped bar, kilo carton, doypack, printed box or jar, plus an indicative quantity, the point of entry, the place you unload at and whose brand the pack carries.
Then ask for that list twice, CIF against DAP, so the leg after clearance comes back as a figure. Several producers’ lines travel on one order and one document set (mixed container). Couverture, bulk chocolate by the kilo, raw nuts, dried fruit, cocoa, baklava, halva and tahini sit outside the range: sourced on request, and we confirm composition and format before quoting (how wework).
We clear at the coast but unload inland. Which term reaches the warehouse?
DAP is the one of the four that names an inland delivery point, so the road run after clearance arrives as a price rather than as an open item. 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 the same list on two terms and compare what moves between them.
Who declares the goods, and what comes from your side?
The importer holding the registration files the entry and answers for the description given; the clearing agent works it locally. From us you receive the technical data sheet per product, our certificates, the analysis report per line. Certificates are issuedfor our factory, and the origin document and the applicable rules are named in the offer as theystand on the day.
A fifth of the import record names no origin. What does that change for me?
For the goods behind that heading, the record cannot say where they were made, and that is the part of the file a queried description leans on. It is why every line we quote carries the technical data sheet, the analysis report and the origin document named in the offer. A line that cannot be traced back to a factory stays out of the offer rather than going in with an asterisk.
