The larger column is the sweets column
Begin with the sizes, because they are not arranged the way a first list assumes. Chocolate, the category most quotations open with, is the smaller of the two here at 2,580,942 dollars. Sugar confectionery — dragées, wrapped sweets, Turkish delight, jellies — is the larger at 4,235,625 dollars.
Both tables are small and we will not inflate them. Small and declared is still workable: a table this size turns on a handful of decisions, and one standing order is visible inside it.
Rank and share point in opposite directions
Türkiye is third on chocolate at 13.47 per cent and second on confectionery at 5.58 per cent. Read the ranks alone and the sweets column looks like the stronger position; read the shares and it is the other way round.
Rank describes the neighbours, share describes the business. Third place among close rivals can be a real repeated flow. Second place a long way behind a dominant source can be a tail position never tested with a proper order. Both are true here, which is why one column cannot be planned from the other.
A column nobody owns
The chocolate table divides: France at 18.6 per cent, Italy at 15.7, Türkiye at 13.5. Nothing reaches a fifth of it, and first to third is a few points apart, not a wall.
A column shaped that way is settled quote by quote. No listing is protected, and a new line need not unseat an incumbent to be stocked — it has to arrive when it said it would, in the format your counter sells. This is the easier of the two columns to move into, because nobody on it is defending much.
A column with one direction in it
Confectionery reads the opposite way: India at 50.1 per cent, then a drop to Türkiye at 5.6 and France at 5.5. Second and third are a rounding difference apart, and everything behind first place sits in the tail.
We will not call that broken; a column filled from one direction is efficient, and whoever runs it knows its numbers. The narrower point is that it carries every disruption of one route straight onto the shelf, and the usual answer is a second source from a different direction rather than a replacement.
What a declaration does not record
These are declared values, not partner statistics read in reverse, so they stand on firmer ground than the figures available for several markets nearby. Firmer is not complete. A customs file records what crossed its own counter that year: goods arriving through a transhipment hub on somebody else’s account, and one large shipment landing either side of a year-end, move the shares without anyone misreporting anything.
Nor does a declared value carry case weights, unit prices or sell-through. Search fills none of that gap: English returned 633 raw phrases, 11 above the counting threshold at 910 a month, with the buying part of it at zero (Madagascar).
Turning a column into an offer
Whichever column you are filling, the offer is built the same way. Send the lines you want priced; the format for each — bulk carton, retail box, kilo bag or jar, the jar line being a spread; an indicative quantity; your delivery point; and whether the pack stays in our standard pack or carries your brand, in which case nothing is printed without written approval.
The answer comes back line by line: net weight, case and pallet data, the minimum for that line, lead time and delivery term. Terms quoted are FCA Gaziantep, FOB Mersin, CIF or DAP, and Gaziantep to Mersin is about three hours by road. Chocolate lines and sweets travel in one load (mixed container).
We sell both. Which column should the first list come from?
Usually the one your counter already turns over, because that is the order you can judge on arrival. If you want the reading from the table: chocolate is divided between France at 18.6 per cent, Italy at 15.7 and Türkiye at 13.5, so a listing there is contestable; sugar confectionery is held at 50.1 per cent by India, so what a second origin offers on that side is cover rather than a lower number. Either way the minimum is set per line, so a first list can sample both.
How much weight do these import figures carry?
They are Madagascar’s own declared values for 2024, not a mirror read from what other countries say they shipped, which makes them firmer than what several nearby markets offer a buyer. Their limit is what any declaration leaves out: no case weights, no unit prices, nothing about how quickly the goods sold, and no record of what moved through a hub on another account.
What has to be settled before the first container is quoted?
The lines and formats, the delivery point, and who is named as importer of record on the pack. Certificates are issued for our factory, with the holder identified per line, and the offer stateswhat applies on the day it is issued. Two naming rules hold throughout: a vegetable-fat coating is a glaze and cannot be labelled chocolate, and the jar line is a spread. 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.
