Private label chocolate and confectionery from Türkiye, for Costa Rican brands
Tablets and bars, dragées in doypacks and pyramid boxes, sachets and flowpacks, 350 g lokum boxes and pistachio spread jars, made in Gaziantep under your own name and shipped to Moín, or to Caldera if your warehouse sits on the Pacific side. We prepare the Spanish label content from our technical data sheet, to what Costa Rica applies to prepackaged food, and check it back against your arte final. Nothing is printed until you approve it in writing.
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Made in Gaziantep, sold under your brand.
Costa Rica is a small shelf served by a short list of importers, and a brand here — a supermarket group building its marca propia, a distributor in the Central Valley, a coffee or souvenir brand selling to visitors — normally puts its name on what a co-packer in the country or in the region can run: a wrapped sweet, a biscuit, a bag of jellies, a plain bar. For those lines that is the sensible road, and this is also a country that grows cacao and has its own bean-to-bar makers, so nobody needs an ordinary chocolate tablet imported from anywhere. The gap is elsewhere. What people here are actually looking for — and the measured searches are shopper searches, where to buy it, not trade searches — is chocolate de Dubai, the pistachio and kadayıf bar, crema de pistacho in a jar, and the boxed sweets the December table reaches for as turrón. No co-packer in Central America runs those, because the raw material and the craft sit at origin.
That is where we come in. Antep Foods is a manufacturer and exporter in Gaziantep, Türkiye: we put our own lines under your name, and load them into one container for Moín or Caldera. Against a local co-packer the difference is origin and width in the same box: a Costa Rican brand can put its name on a pistachio tablet, a Dubai style bar, sugared almonds in the colours of a wedding table, a 350 g lokum box and a jar of pistachio spread at the same time, from our own factory, on one order, one set of documents and one origin proof. In a market this size that is the part that decides whether an own brand happens at all, because no single one of those lines will fill a container by itself — the box is panelled, your own-brand lines travel beside lines in our standard packs, each on its own pallet, and a first order is not limited to one product. The rest is the question every buyer finishes on: who makes it, and at what minimum. We make it in our own factory in Gaziantep; the minimum is set per line and stated in the offer.
Your label goes on lines produced in our own factory in Gaziantep.
Five formats, one container.
Nothing printed before you approve.
- 01
Line and minimum
You name the lines from the product pages and the pack format you want them in. We confirm which of them can be made under your brand, whether the line is chocolate or compound coated, the lead time, and the minimum, which is set per line and stated in the offer. If a line cannot be run under a private label, we say so at this step rather than later.
- 02
Label content
We prepare the Spanish label content from our technical data sheet, to the Central American technical regulation Costa Rica applies to prepackaged food: the name of the food, the ingredient list with the allergens declared, the nutrition information, net content in metric units, lot, storage, the best before date, country of origin, and the name and address of the party responsible in Costa Rica. The data comes from our technical data sheet, and the same file is what feeds your registration.
- 03
Artwork approval
Your designer places that content in the arte final with your brand and your details. We check the layout back against our data sheet, line by line, and you approve it in writing. Before that written approval nothing is printed: no wrapper, no sleeve, no box, no jar label.
- 04
Production and loading
We run the line, check the lot before packing, consolidate and photograph the pallets, each line on its own. Your own-brand pallets are panelled into the same container as the rest of your order and the box leaves Mersin for Moín, or Caldera on request, with the document set for the entry in Costa Rica. Chocolate and chocolate-coated lines are quoted in a reefer year round on this route: the container lands in the heat at the Caribbean coast and only then climbs to the Central Valley, so the plan also covers how quickly it is de-stuffed.
What to know before the first list.
- Label
- A Spanish label to the Central American technical regulation Costa Rica applies to prepackaged food: the name of the food, the ingredient list with the allergen declaration, the nutrition information, metric net content, storage, the lot and the expiry date, and the name and address of the importer. For lines in our standard packs we confirm what the export pack already carries and what the importer adds; for private label we prepare the label content from our technical data sheet and check your artwork against it before anything is printed.
- Sanitary registration and entry
- Imported food is registered with the health authority on the importer’s side, in the importer’s name, before it goes on sale, and the consignment is cleared and inspected on arrival. From our side we supply what the registration needs: the technical data sheet per product, our certificates and the analysis report per line. Registration runs before the deposit and is not counted in the lead time, and the offer states what applies to each line on the day.
- Customs
- Costa Rica applies the Central American common external tariff, and there is no free trade agreement in force between Costa Rica and Türkiye. The offer states the tariff line and the duty that applies on the day, so the landed cost is known before you order. No duty or tax figure is printed on this site, because it changes.
- Certificates and documents
- Per line you receive the technical data sheet, the ingredient and allergen declaration, the shelf life as stated on our data sheet, the analysis report and our certificates. The certificate of origin, the health certificate and the rest of the export set travel with the shipment as the offer lists them so the importer can put a name on the registration file.
- Minimums
- Set per line and stated in the offer. The unit of sale is one full container, panelled, so an own-brand line rides in the same box as other lines and a first order is not limited to one product — which is the only way an own brand works on a shelf this size.
- Lead time
- Stated per line in the offer and counted from the deposit and the written artwork approval, not from the first enquiry. The registration on your side runs in parallel and is not part of that count, so a launch date is planned backwards from both.
- Certificates
- Held for our factory in Gaziantep: the food-safety certification the plant is audited to, halal or kosher on the lines that carry it, the technical data sheet and the analysis report per line. The holder and the certifying body are named per line and copies are available on request. Where a line is not certified, we say so instead of writing it onto the offer.
- Currency and payment
- Offers in US dollars, FCA Gaziantep, FOB Mersin, CIF or DAP — pricing and payment stay in dollars whatever the colón is doing. Bank transfer, 50% with the order and 50% before the container leaves, against the loading photographs of your pallets. There is no trade agreement between Türkiye and Costa Rica to lean on, so the landed cost is what the tariff makes it: the offer states the tariff line and the duty that applies on the day, per line, before the artwork goes to print.
- The registration is opened in your name
- Prepackaged food is sold here against a sanitary registration held on the importer’s side and filed with the health authority before the goods go on sale, so on an own-brand line the file is opened in your name and the label carries you as the party responsible for the product. From our side we supply what that file asks for: the technical data sheet, the ingredient and allergen breakdown, the shelf life as stated on our data sheet, the analysis report per line and, where it is asked for, a free sale certificate.
- December, and the season that follows it
- Two things land on the same shelf here. The December gift table takes the printed box, the tablet and the lokum, and the high season for visitors runs on from it into the dry months, which is when the hotel, café and souvenir counters move gift formats. Both are supplied from containers ordered in the middle of the year, so an artwork approval in the second half of the year is already late for that December. Say which of the two shelves a line is for and the format, the weight and the case are chosen for it before anything is drawn.
- The other route
- A co-packer in Costa Rica or elsewhere in Central America is the shorter road for a wrapped sweet, a biscuit or a plain bar, and for those we would not argue with it — this is a cacao country with its own makers. This route earns its place on what cannot be made here: pistachio lines from where the pistachio grows, the Dubai style bar, sugared almonds and dragées, boxed Turkish delight, pistachio spread — several product groups under one brand, from our own factory, on one order and one set of documents.
Asked by brands first.
Are you the manufacturer?
Yes. Chocolate, dragées, pistachio and hazelnut creams, popping candy and Turkish delight are made in our own factory in Gaziantep, and we have exported since 2002. We run your private-label lines, check the lot before packing and load the container at our factory.
Our market is small. Do we have to fill a container with one product to have our own brand?
No, and that is the point of this route. The unit of sale is one full container, panelled: your own-brand line travels with other lines from the same factory, each on its own pallet, so what your line has to reach is its own minimum — set per line and stated in the offer — not the volume of a whole box. A first order can carry several of your own lines beside lines in our standard packs you are already selling.
Who prepares the Spanish label, and when is it printed?
We prepare the content from our technical data sheet, to the Central American technical regulation Costa Rica applies to prepackaged food. Your designer places it in the arte final with your details as the responsible party; we check that layout back against the data sheet, line by line; you approve it in writing. Nothing is printed before that written approval — not a wrapper, not a box, not a jar label.
Who holds the sanitary registration for an own-brand line?
It is held on the importer’s side and filed with the health authority before the product goes on sale, so on your own brand the file is opened in your name and the label shows you as the party responsible. We supply our documents that file needs — data sheet, ingredient and allergen breakdown, shelf life, analysis report per line, free sale certificate where it is asked for. Registration runs in parallel with production and is not counted inside the lead time.
Can we have the Dubai style pistachio bar under our own brand?
On selected lines, yes: it is made in Gaziantep, where the pistachio grows and the kadayıf is made, in retail and gift formats. We confirm the recipe, the pistachio content and the format under your name before anything is quoted. Whether the coating is chocolate or a compound coating is written per line on the offer, and a vegetable-fat coating is never called chocolate on a document that leaves this office — that word has to be right on your pack, not only in the offer.
Can you run cobertura or bulk chocolate by the kilo with our name on the box, for the pastry trade?
Coating chocolate and bulk chocolate by the kilo sit outside the range we hold, as do raw nuts, dried fruit, cocoa and empty packaging: sourced on request; we confirm composition and format before quoting. If a repostería line matters to you, ask for it by name and the answer will be what our line can actually run, with the offer stating whether it is chocolate or a compound coating — not a yes on a website.
What will we pay at the border, and is there an agreement that helps?
There is no free trade agreement in force between Türkiye and Costa Rica, so nothing is assumed on our side: your broker declares the line and pays what applies. The offer states the tariff line and the duty that applies on the day, per line, and names the origin document and the rest of the export set that travel with the container. We do not print duty or tax figures on this site, because they change.
Are you a private label chocolate manufacturer?
Yes. Your label is printed in our own factory in Gaziantep after you approve the artwork, and the minimum per line is stated in the offer. Prices are not published; they come in the written offer.
Importing into Costa Rica: what stays the same on every offer →
Send the list. We do the rest.
Send your product list with approximate quantities and the destination port. You get one offer covering every line, then one container, loaded and photographed before the doors close.
Mixed containerHow a list becomes a container →