One name in both columns
Set the two top-threes side by side and almost nothing repeats. Chocolate arrives across the Mediterranean and from South Asia; sugar confectionery arrives from along the same West African coast. The exception is France, at 41.8 per cent of one column and 8.2 of the other.
A buyer who stocks both halves of the sweet shelf from whoever already calls on them can end up with one European supply line behind the chocolate fixture and part of the sugar one. That kind of concentration is invisible on a shelf and plain in a table.
The chocolate column, and the narrowest gap in it
France 41.8, Italy 21.6, India 8.8, then Türkiye fourth on 8.39 per cent of 7,266,340 dollars. The leader’s share is the headline; the working figure is the distance between third and fourth, the smallest step anywhere near the top of either column.
Fourth place a fraction behind third is not a trial shipment. Moulded, wrapped and printed chocolate of Turkish origin already clears here, prices here and sells here, which leaves the open questions narrow: which lines, in which formats, at what case weight, and how quickly the reorder lands.
The sugar column is a neighbourhood trade
Côte d’Ivoire on 61.1 per cent with Nigeria behind it on 17.1 is not a verdict on quality. On a boiled sweet sold by the kilo the argument is freight and lead time, and a line that never leaves the region wins it. We will not quote to take that kilo.
The instructive figure there is France on 8.2 per cent: a long-haul origin holding a share of a regional trade. What travels that far is the part not bought by the kilo: dragées in colours and printed boxes, chocolate-coated lines, boxed Turkish delight and own-label runs. Türkiye’s 0.44 per cent says that part has barely been tried.
Rank is the cheapest number in the table
Eighth reads better than it is and fourth reads smaller than it is. The sugar column is the larger of the two by declared value, and Turkish origin holds 0.44 per cent of it; the chocolate column is the smaller, and Turkish origin holds 8.39. Most of what this market buys from Türkiye sits in the smaller column.
Rank records where a name landed in a list. Share against the size of the column tells you whether a line is stocked and reordered or was imported once and dropped.
What a declaration does not carry
These are figures Senegal declared itself, not a mirror assembled from what other countries say they shipped, so they stand on firmer ground than what is available for several markets nearby. Firmer is not complete: a declared value carries no case weights, no unit prices and nothing about what sold through.
Search does not close the gap. English returned 857 raw phrases, 15 above the threshold for about 1,230 a month, none of it buying language. French returned 1,481 raw, 17 above threshold for about 680 a month, of which 150 carries wholesale wording.
Turning the table into an offer
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 keeps our standard pack or carries your brand, in which case nothing is printed before you approve it. The offer comes back line by line: net weight, case and pallet data, minimum, lead time and delivery term.
Terms quoted are FCA Gaziantep, FOB Mersin, CIF or DAP; Mersin is about three hours from our factory by road. Chocolate travels in a reefer through the warm months, Turkish delight and dragées travel dry, and the two share one load (mixed container).
Turkish origin is 0.44 per cent of the sugar column here. Why quote it at all?
Not for the plain sweet sold by the kilo. A West African source on 61.1 per cent of that column wins on freight and lead time, and we would rather write that down than argue with it. The part worth quoting from Gaziantep is the part not bought on cents per kilo: dragées in colours and printed boxes, chocolate-coated lines, boxed Turkish delight, occasion packs and own-label runs. In the chocolate column the position is already different — fourth on 8.39 per cent, a fraction behind third.
How firm are these import figures?
They are Senegal’s own declared import values for 2024 rather than a mirror read back from partner statistics, so they are firmer than the figures we can publish for several neighbours. Their limit is what any declaration leaves out: no case weights, no unit prices, no split between retail pack and bulk, and nothing about the pace of sell-through.
Can lines from both columns travel in one container?
Yes. The minimum is set per line rather than per container, so chocolate, dragées, Turkish delight and wrapped confectionery can load together on one document set. Couverture, bulk chocolate by the kilo, raw nuts, dried fruit, cocoa, halva, tahini and baklava sit outside the range and are sourced on request; we confirm composition and format before quoting. Certificates are held for our factory, and the offer states what applies on the day it is issued.
