Read your own two columns before choosing a line
The declared table tells you which half of the box is a substitution and which half an addition. Chocolate came to 107,518 US dollars in 2024, Türkiye already first at roughly 26.51 per cent. Sugar confectionery came to 1,517,846, Türkiye fifth at 2.68 behind India at 79.0.
Chocolate is therefore not a new argument on your shelf — only a question of which line and whose label. Sugar confectionery is the opposite: a full shelf fed from far off, where the shorter chain is what is worth testing. A first box usually carries both, unequally.
One box, several lines, a minimum set per line
The unit of sale is one full container, and you may mix as many lines into it as you like: chocolate, dragées, Turkish delight, wrapped confectionery and spreads in jars, from our own factory, on one order and one document set. The minimum is set per line rather than per container — which is what makes a first order a test rather than a bet.
Dry and chilled lines still share the box: through the warm months chocolate is quoted in a reefer, per line, while Turkish delight, dragées and jellies travel dry.
Format is the decision a distant supplier makes for you
Case weight, bag size, loose by the kilo or in a printed bag, tablet or mini-bar, doypack or carton: a source filling four fifths of a shelf from far away settles all that by the run length suiting its own plant.
Ordering on your own account moves that choice back to you. Tell us what the counter moves, and the month you want the goods standing in your warehouse rather than loaded — the road leg sits inside that date.
What the carton itself has to carry
The mandatory panel runs in French, with English or Arabic alongside it where your shelf wants a second language: product name, ingredients with allergens declared, net weight in metric units, storage conditions, the importer named and addressed, and the date marking. Producer-brand lines arrive with a panel already printed and we tell you what it says beforehand; own-label panels are drafted off our data sheet and read against your artwork before printing.
One namingrule holds even on a pack that will never travel to Europe: a vegetable-fat coating is a compound or a glaze on the data sheet and on the pack, never chocolate.
What the written offer names, line by line
The offer gives, against every line, ingredients and allergens, net weight, case and pallet data, lead time, price and delivery term. Terms are FCA Gaziantep, FOB Mersin, CIF or DAP; Mersin is about three hours from our factory by road.
The leg after the port is the one thathas to exist on paper: the offer names the port of discharge, the crossing it assumes, and the point where our responsibility stops and yours starts. On entry it states what applies on the day it is written; your clearing agent confirms that. Certificates are issued for our factory.
Confirm these before the deposit, then send the list
Four things belong in writing before money moves: which producer makes which line; the format and case weight per reference; the handover point and the port assumed; and the payment split — a deposit when the order is placed, the balance before the box leaves, released once photographs of the loaded pallets are with you. Prices are in US dollars.
Send the references you want priced, the format for each, an indicative quantity and the handover point; a written offer follows line by line (mixed container). Couverture, bulk chocolate by the kilo, raw nuts, dried fruit, cocoa, halva, tahini and baklava sit outside the range: sourced on request, with composition and format confirmed before quoting.
How small can a first order be?
The box itself does not shrink — a full container is the unit — but the quantity is fixed reference by reference, not for the container as a whole. That is the part worth using on a first order: fill it with a spread of references in modest runs rather than one reference in a heavy one, and you learn which of them actually moves off the shelf before you commit a second time.
We are inland. How do we work out an arrival date?
Start at the far end and count backwards. Sea freight stops at a port in a neighbouring country and the rest is a road movement under transit, cleared for home use only when that run ends, which makes your inland agent as decisive to the date as the vessel is. Give us the week you want stock on the floor and the loading date follows from it; the offer sets out the term, the discharge port it is priced against and the crossing it assumes, and leaves the position at entry to what holds on the day, confirmed by your clearing agent.
Does a chocolate line restrict what else can travel with it?
No — it decides how the box is specified, not what goes in it. In the hot part of the year chocolate and coated lines are priced with temperature control and the offer marks that against each one; Turkish delight, dragées, hard and chewy sweets and jellies are dry goods and mind the overland stretch much less. Both kinds still load together, so the choice is a specification question rather than a reason to split an order.
