Turkish chocolate, dragées, Turkish delight and confectionery for importers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Six lines, mixed to your list.

Each line travels on its own pallet; the container is mixed. Outside the core range we source on request and load it in the same shipment.

What stays the same on every offer.

Rates and rules change; the quotation states what applies on the day. These points do not change.

What the mirror figures say — and what they do not

This country does not report its own import statistics to the international trade database. The only view available is the mirror: what every other country recorded as exports to it, added together. On 2024 mirror data that is about 12,427,589 US dollars of chocolate, with Türkiye fourth at roughly 9.15 per cent, and about 55,242,642 US dollars of sugar confectionery, with Türkiye twelfth at roughly 0.23 per cent. Read it as a direction, not as a settled number. A partner that reports late, partially or not at all moves every share in that table, and nobody outside the customs houses knows by how much. There is a second limit worth naming: a mirror table records the country that declared the export, which is where a consignment was dispatched from and not always where it was made. We publish the figures because they change what this page can honestly claim, not because they are exact.

Two columns, two different conversations

On chocolate, Türkiye is fourth at roughly 9.15 per cent. Origin is not the open question there; the open questions are which line out of a wide range, in which format and case weight, under whose label, and how much of it is written down. On sugar confectionery, Türkiye is twelfth at roughly 0.23 per cent, and we will not pretend that is a foothold. In that column we are the new option rather than the familiar one, and the sensible way to test a new option is a few pallets inside a container that is otherwise filled with lines you already sell. That is the main practical reason we sell by the mixed container and not by the single product.

Where this shelf is dispatched from

The source table is mostly a map of the region rather than a map of factories. A neighbouring country heads both columns — roughly 25.4 per cent of the chocolate and 41.6 per cent of the sugar confectionery — with Kenya at 17.6 and South Africa at 12.8 also inside the top three of one column or the other. The two distant entries are Belgium at 16.0 in chocolate and India at 19.3 in confectionery. Since a mirror table records the country that declared the export, a regional neighbour at the top of a column usually means the goods changed hands at least once before they crossed the border. That is not a complaint about anyone: it is a description of a chain. Your shelf is not empty and we are not going to tell you it is. What a source closer to the producer changes is the number of hands between the factory and your warehouse, whether the format and the case weight are yours to choose or somebody else's to decide for you, and whether the lead time is something you can plan against.

Route, delivery terms and the heat

Delivery terms quoted are FCA Gaziantep, FOB Mersin, CIF or DAP. Our factory is in Gaziantep and Mersin port is about three hours away by road, so the part of the journey we control is short and predictable. The part after the port is the part that has to be agreed rather than assumed, and the offer names the delivery term, the port of discharge we are quoting against, and the point where our responsibility ends and yours begins; your clearing agent confirms what applies on the day. Temperature is planned in the same breath. Chocolate and chocolate-coated lines are quoted in a reefer through the warm months. Turkish delight, dragées, hard and chewy confectionery and jellies travel dry and take a long journey better, and dry and chilled lines can still share one container. If the inland leg falls in your hottest weeks, say so before we quote and we build the mix around it instead of explaining it afterwards.

Label, in French

The mandatory information in French, with English alongside where your file or the shelf wants it: 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. For lines in our standard packs we confirm what the export pack already carries; for own-label lines we prepare the content from our technical data sheet and check your artwork before anything is printed. One discipline we do not bend: a line coated in vegetable fat is named a compound or a glaze on the data sheet, on the pack and in the price list, never chocolate. European labelling rules forbid calling it chocolate, and we keep the two words apart everywhere, including on a pack that will never see Europe, because a buyer who discovers the difference at the shelf discovers it too late.

The customs file, and what the importer holds

This file is national. The origin document and the rules that apply are named in the offer, and the offer states what applies on the day rather than this page guessing at it — regional arrangements change, and a figure printed on a web page is out of date before it is read. From our side you receive the technical data sheet per product, our certificates and the analysis report per line. Certificates are issued for our factory; we name the certifying body and send copies on request instead of describing a document we do not hold. Lines with ingredients of animal origin, gelatine in jellies above all, travel with our halal certificate and the offer names the certifying body per line. The importer holds the registration, files the consignment and instructs the agent.

Weddings, dragées and the calendar

French is where the measured search actually names things we make. The largest single phrase, at roughly 320 searches a month, is about wedding guests; the word for dragée itself runs at about 40 a month and the wedding-dragée phrase at about 20, with a phrase about chocolate for the February gift season at about 30. These are small consumer-side numbers and we will not inflate them into a market, but they point at the part of the shelf that moves on a calendar rather than on a weekly reorder: sugared almonds and chocolate dragées in occasion colours, printed retail boxes and mini-bar assortments. A colour is a production run and not a stock pick, so the minimum per colour and the lead time are stated per line in the offer, and seasonal lines are quoted ahead of the season. Worth noting alongside it: the French word for Turkish delight appears in the same measured set at about 20 a month, which means boxed and kilo lokum needs no explaining at the counter here.

Words that mean different things — name the format before we quote

Three of the measured phrases are shelf words rather than products, and each of them would produce the wrong quotation if we guessed. The largest English phrase, at roughly 390 searches a month, is the word for éclairs: at a pastry counter it means one thing and on a wrapped confectionery shelf across much of this region it means another entirely, a filled chewy sweet sold by the kilo. Baklava turns up in the English count in three different spellings, each at about 70 a month, and baklava is outside what we make — see the note below. And a French phrase at about 30 a month asks for a chocolate bar in the style associated with Dubai, which is a format request rather than a defined recipe. In every one of these cases the answer is the same: tell us the format you mean — filled chew or wrapped toffee, sheet or cut cube, bar weight and filling — and we confirm which of our lines matches before quoting. If none does, it is sourced on request and handled the same way.

Sourced on request

The core range is chocolate, dragées, Turkish delight, wrapped confectionery and spreads in jars. Everything outside it is sourced on request rather than claimed: couverture and bulk chocolate by the kilo, raw nuts, dried fruit, cocoa, halva, tahini, baklava and empty packaging. We confirm composition and format before quoting, and if a line cannot be confirmed it does not go into the offer. This matters here because the measured English search leans that way: baklava in its several spellings, tahini at about 40 a month, and the words for the French bakery counter — a chocolate pastry and a croissant, each at about 40 a month — none of which is a line we produce. Fresh bakery is not something a container from Gaziantep can serve at all, and we say so rather than stretching the range to cover it. What is confirmed loads in the same container as the rest.

Currency and payment

Offers in US dollars. Bank transfer only: 50 per cent with the order, 50 per cent before the container leaves, against the loading photographs. The offer states the banking route that applies on the day, and it is settled in writing before production starts rather than after the pallets are wrapped.