The first three hours belong to us
The load starts inland on our side too. Chocolate, dragées, Turkish delight, wrapped confectionery and spreads in jars are made in our Gaziantep factory and loaded into one box, and Mersin port is about three hours away by road — a short leg, and ours.
After the water it is discharged at a port in a neighbouring country; what remains is a truck, a border post and an inland yard. Through the warm months chocolate and chocolate-coated lines are quoted in a reefer: that stretch is spent on a trailer, not in a cold store. Dry lines take it in their stride and ride in the same box.
Transit, or entry at the coast
A box bound inland must cross a coastal state, and can do it two ways. Under a transit procedure it stays sealed on a file opened at the port and closed at your border, where you enter it for home use. Entered at the coast instead, it reaches you already imported once, in somebody else’s name.
Different paperwork, different agents, a different declarant — and only one puts your name on the entry. Settle it with your clearing agent before the offer is signed, not after the box sails. The offer names the port of discharge and the crossing it assumes.
Where each delivery term stops
We quote FCA Gaziantep, FOB Mersin, CIF and DAP. What separates them is not price but where cost and risk change shoulders. FCA hands you the loaded container at our loading bay; FOB once it is on board. Both suit a buyer already running a forwarder.
CIF ends at a named port of discharge, a border and a long drive short of your warehouse. DAP alone crosses the border, to a place you name. Ask for the same list on two terms and read the gap: the road leg, priced now instead of invoiced later.
Every origin on your shelf finishes on the same road
The sugar confectionery column for 2024, about 1,517,846 US dollars, fills from a long way off: India at roughly 79.0 per cent, Brazil 6.1, China 5.5. None of it arrives by sea either: it lands on a coast that is not yours and finishes by truck, exactly as a box from Mersin does.
So the overland leg is not peculiar to one origin; it is the last stage of everything standing in your warehouse. What differs is how many stops came before it — how many warehouses, and how many margins, while somebody else owned them.
The file, and whose name is on each part of it
Our side of the file: the technical data sheet per product, our certificates, theanalysis report per line. Certificates are issued for our factory; we name the certifying body and send copies on request. Where a line carries gelatine, copies of our halal certificate are available on request.
The entry file is national and itmoves, so the offer states the origin document, the rule set relied on and what applies on the day. Registration, the entry and the instruction to the transit agent stay with you.
French on the panel, and what to send us
French carries the mandatory information, English or Arabic beside it if your file wants a second language: the name of the food, the ingredient list with allergens, metric net weight, storage conditions, the importer’s name and address, and the date marking. On own-label lines we draft the content from our data sheet and check it against your artwork before a plate is cut. Acoating made with vegetable fat is a compound or a glaze, never chocolate.
Send the references you want priced, the format and case weight for each, an indicative quantity, and where the container should change hands (how we work). The offer comes back in writing with the route named in it.
There is no port here. Which term should we ask you to quote?
Ask for two and compare. FCA Gaziantep and FOB Mersin suit a buyer with their own forwarder on this lane; CIF stops at a named port of discharge in a neighbouring country, with the overland run still ahead; DAP crosses the border to a place you name. The gap between two quoted terms is the road leg with a price on it, which is easier to judge before loading than afterwards. Whichever is chosen, the offer names the port of discharge and the crossing assumed.
Who declares the goods, and where?
That depends on whether the container travels in transit or is entered at the coast. In transit it stays sealed under a file opened at the port and is entered for home use at the end of the inland run, in your name. Entered at the coast, it has already been imported once before it reaches you. Your clearing agent confirms the position on the day; from our side the technical data sheets, our certificates,the analysis reports and the origin document travel with the load.
What language does the label have to be in?
French for the mandatory information, with English or Arabic alongside if your file or your shelf calls for a second language. On lines in our standard packs we tell you what the export pack already carries before youorder it; on own-label lines we draft the content from our technical data sheet and check itagainst your artwork before printing is booked. Anything outside our range — couverture, bulk chocolate by the kilo, raw nuts, dried fruit, cocoa, halva, tahini, baklava, empty packaging — is sourced on request, and we confirm composition and format before quoting.
