Turkish delight ingredients, sugar and storage: what importers ask

The ingredients

The base is sugar, starch and water, cooked slowly until it sets. Flavour comes from rose water, lemon, mastic or fruit; texture and colour from what is added: pistachio, hazelnut, almond, walnut, coconut, pomegranate, kadayif. The dusting is icing sugar or a starch mix; chocolate-covered pieces trade the dusting for a chocolate shell. Traditional lokum sets with starch, not gelatin, so most plain lines are vegetarian by recipe; the technical data sheet confirms it per product.

Does Turkish delight have a lot of sugar?

Yes. It is a sugar confection, and sugar is the first ingredient by weight in every classic recipe. That is not a defect; it is what preserves it and gives it the texture. What changes between lines is the nut content: a pistachio finger roll is a large share nut by weight, a plain rose cube is not. The exact values per product are on our technical data sheet, which is issued with the quotation and feeds the nutrition panel on a US label.

Allergens to declare

Tree nuts are the obvious one: pistachio, hazelnut, almond and walnut appear in many lines and must be declared. Coconut is declared where a market’s rules ask for it. Chocolate-covered pieces add milk and, through lecithin, soy. Wheat can appear in kadayif coatings. None of this is unusual, but it is why the label content for a private-label run is prepared from the data sheet and checked before printing.

Storage: cool, dry, closed

Lokum wants a cool, dry place and a closed pack. Heat softens it, humidity makes the dusting clump, and open air dries the surface. Vacuum pouches and lidded boxes exist for exactly this reason; bulk cartons are lined. Shelf life depends on the recipe and the pack and is stated per product on the data sheet; it is not something an exporter should quote from memory.

Sugar-free and reduced-sugar versions

Lokum set with sweeteners instead of sugar exists and is asked for by pharmacies and diet ranges. It is not a standard line on this site and is sourced on request, with the producer’s own data sheet, because the texture, the shelf life and the label claims are all different from the classic product. The same applies to reduced-sugar chocolate: possible, on request, and never sold as the ordinary line under a different name.

How it travels

Plain and dusted Turkish delight travels in a dry container all year. Chocolate-covered lokum follows the chocolate rule: chocolate and chocolate-coated products travel at a controlled temperature, and for a mixed container in the warm months a reefer is quoted. Each line takes its own pallet, so the dry and the chocolate lines can share a container without sharing a fate. Details on the mixed-container page.

What to send

Start with the turkish delight page: pick the lines, say how many and name the port. The written offer follows within two working days and states what each line weighs by the carton and what the minimum is.

Tasting first is normal — samples are free from running production, you cover the courier. The united states: what stays the same on every offer page lists what stays the same on every offer, and the private label for us brands page covers putting your own name on the pack.