The land crossing is already in the route you run
This shelf is restocked across a land border every week, so an overland arrival is not new ground here. What a load from Gaziantep changes is the length of the lane behind that crossing, and the number of legs to be named before a price means anything.
A supplier who treats the road leg as an obstacle is describing your ordinary week as an exception. The useful question is narrower: on which leg does the consignment become yours.
Three hours before the sea leg begins
The producers load in Gaziantep, and the first movement never appears on a bill of lading: about three hours by road to Mersin. It is rarely asked about, yet it fixes the date a container is available, which answers to a production week and not to a sailing.
From Mersin the sea leg runs to whichever port of entry you name next door — a decision, not a formality: it settles the inland distance and the crossing the truck will use.
Four terms, four places where it becomes yours
Four terms are quoted, and the choice is really about your forwarder: does it already work the corridor from the discharge port to the crossing, or not?
Under FCA Gaziantep the consignment becomes yours in our factory yard, all three legs on your booking. FOB Mersin puts the change of hands at the ship. CIF runs to the discharge port and stops, leaving the crossing and the inland run with you. DAP keeps the chain on our side to the address you name.
Two customs acts, three names on the file
Because the sea leg ends in another country, one journey carries two customs acts: goods landed and moved under transit to the crossing, then entered for import there — two documents, two sets of hands.
Three names sit on that file, and only one of them may declare the goods. The exporter signs the invoice and packing list; the transit is opened by whoever carries the road leg; the importer of record files the entry and owns its description. The offer names the origin document and the rules in the form valid on the day; your clearing agent confirms what applies at the counter.
A cold chain booked to the quay is booked halfway
Most of this shelf travels dry anyway: sugar confectionery is the larger column at 4,108,835 US dollars against 1,623,087 for chocolate, and jellies, dragées, coated nuts and Turkish delight are not reefer lines.
Chocolate and chocolate-coated lines are, through the warm months, and both load into one container. What the overland finish changes is reach: a reefer booked for the sea leg alone ends where the truck starts, on the hottest stretch. The offer marks the reefer lines, and the booking covers the inland leg as well.
The paperwork that rides along, and the list that starts it
Every load carries the same set: a technical data sheet per product, an analysis report per line, and certificates issued for our factory.Labels are prepared in English, down to the allergen line, the metric net weight and the importer’s name and address. Two words do not move: a vegetable-fat coating is a compound or a glaze and never chocolate, which in the European Union may not be labelled chocolate at all; the jar line is a spread.
Pricing a route is line-by-line work: it starts from a list — the products, the format and quantity of each, the port of entry, the delivery point. One container holds as many lines as you care to mix. Couverture, chocolate in bulk by the kilo, raw nuts, cocoa, baklava, halva and tahini are sourced on request — we confirm composition and format before quoting. Send thelist, and the route comes back priced leg by leg.
Our forwarder works the region but not Türkiye. Which term fits?
CIF or DAP, in which case the booking on our side runs further: under CIF the cost is ours to the discharge port, under DAP it runs to the address you name, land crossing included. FCA Gaziantep and FOB Mersin suit buyers whose forwarder can lift the load at origin. Whichever you take is written into the offer with the port of entry and the party carrying the inland run, so nothing is settled in the queue at the crossing.
Whose name is on the certificates, and who declares the goods on arrival?
Certificates are issued for our factory, with the certifying body shown per line;a supplier who calls them his own is describing somebody else’s audit. Declaring is a separate matter again: the importer of record files the entry and owns the description on it, and your clearing agent confirms what applies on the day. Our part of the file is the data sheet per product, the analysis report per line.
Does the road finish put the whole load into a reefer?
No, and most of what sells here would gain nothing from it. Turkish delight, dragées, jellies, hard sweets and wrapped confectionery travel dry; chocolate and chocolate-coated lines are quoted in a reefer through the warm months, and the two ride together. What deserves attention is the booking window: on a journey that ends overland, a reefer contracted only to the discharge port leaves the hottest hours uncovered, so the offer marks the reefer lines and the cold chain is booked through to delivery.
