Private label chocolate and confectionery from Türkiye, for Panamanian brands and free-zone traders
Tablet and bar boxes, 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 loaded for Colón. We prepare the Spanish label content from our technical data sheet — and where the box leaves the free zone again, the content for the market it is going to. Nothing is printed until you approve the final artwork in writing.
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Made in Gaziantep, sold under your brand.
An own-brand confectionery line in Panama is asked for by two companies that are not standing on the same shelf. One is a retail group, a distributor or a gift house selling from Panama City to David, and it wants its name on a chocolate tablet, on a dragée box for a wedding or a baptism, on a boxed Turkish delight for December. The other sits in the Colón Free Zone and does not sell in Panama at all: its customers are in Central America, the Caribbean and the north of South America, and an own brand is how it stops re-selling the same label its competitors sell to the same buyers. Panama makes very little confectionery itself, so both companies are importing whichever route they take. A co-packer in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Colombia or Mexico is still a foreign supplier with a foreign origin on the pack, and it can only run what its own lines are already set up to run — a wrapped sweet, a biscuit, a bag of jellies. We are the other route: a manufacturer and exporter in Gaziantep, Türkiye, putting our own lines under your name and loading one container for Colón, or for Balboa when the Pacific side suits your warehouse better.
What that buys is width in one shipment and an origin the region does not already have on the shelf. On one order and one set of documents your brand can go on a pistachio tablet from where the pistachio grows, on the pistachio and kadayıf bar the shelf keeps asking for as chocolate de Dubai, on dragées in your own colours, on a 350 g lokum box and on a jar of pistachio spread — from our own factory, and none of those lines has to fill a container by itself, because the box is panelled and your own-brand lines travel beside lines in our standard packs, each on its own pallet. For a free-zone brand the zone then does the second half of the job: one container arrives, and it leaves again in the lot sizes each of your markets can actually take, which is the thing a co-packer minimum in every country cannot do. What is left is the question every buyer ends 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, the pack format you want them in, and one thing that is particular to Panama: whether the box is for the Panamanian shelf, for onward trade out of the Colón Free Zone, or both. We confirm which lines can be made under your brand, whether each is chocolate or compound coated, and the minimum, which is set per line and stated in the offer.
- 02
Label content
We prepare the Spanish label content from our technical data sheet: the name of the food, the ingredient list with allergens declared, net content in metric units, lot, the production and expiry dates, storage, country of origin, and the name and address of the importer. A line coated with vegetable fat is not named as chocolate. If the box is going to leave the free zone for another country, the label is written for that market and names the importer there, so a regional brand ends up with one artwork and a version per destination — say which markets at this step, not after the plates are made.
- 03
Artwork approval
You place that content in your arte final. We check the layout back against our data sheet, line by line, and you approve it in writing; where there is more than one destination version, each one is approved on its own. Before that written approval nothing is printed: no wrapper, no sleeve, no box, no label.
- 04
Production and loading
We run the line, check the lot before packing, consolidate the pallets and photograph them. Your brand line is panelled into the same container as the rest of your order, each line on its own pallet, and the box leaves Mersin with the document set made out to the consignee you named — the free-zone company or the importer. Chocolate and chocolate-coated lines are quoted in a reefer year round on this route, because Panama has no cool month and the crossing is tropical; Turkish delight, dragées and jellies travel dry.
What to know before the first list.
- Label
- A Spanish label for the Panamanian shelf: the name of the food, the ingredient list with allergens, metric net content, lot, the production and expiry dates, storage, and the name and address of the importer. Where a line is coated with vegetable fat rather than cocoa butter it is not named as chocolate; the offer says chocolate or compound per line and the label follows the offer. For lines in our standard packs we confirm what the export pack already carries; for private label we prepare the label content from our technical data sheet and check your artwork against it before anything is printed. A box that leaves the free zone again carries the label of the market it is going to, so name the destination with the order.
- Entry and certificates
- The registration and the permit a line needs sit with the importer, not with us. From our side every line comes with our technical data sheet, the analysis report and our certificates, named line by line rather than claimed for the whole container in the offer. The export documents travel as one set for the whole container, whichever families it carries.
- Customs
- Goods held in the Colón Free Zone are not nationalised while they stay in the zone; duty becomes a question the day a box leaves it for the Panamanian market, and a box that leaves for another country enters under the rules of that market. Either way the offer states the tariff line and the duty that applies on the day, so the landed cost is known before you order.
- Minimums
- Set per line and stated in the offer. The unit of sale is one full container, panelled, so an own-brand line travels in the same box as other lines and a first order is not limited to one product. How that container is broken down afterwards — one warehouse in Panama City, or small lots leaving the zone for four countries — is your side of the business and does not change the minimum per line.
- Lead time
- Stated per line in the offer and counted from the deposit and the written artwork approval, not from the first enquiry. If the shelf you are aiming at is December, or a cruise season, plan backwards from that date and add the sea leg and the transshipment; a multi-market artwork adds the approval rounds, not the production.
- 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. The holder is named per line and copies are available on request. We do not put a certificate on an offer that we do not hold — which matters more on this route than most, because a free-zone buyer is passing those documents on to importers it has to satisfy in several countries.
- Currency and payment
- Offers in US dollars, FCA Gaziantep, FOB Mersin, CIF or DAP. The dollar is in circulation in Panama alongside the balboa, so the figure in the offer is the figure you price your own brand against, with no exchange step in between. Bank transfer: 50% with the order and 50% before the container leaves, against the loading photographs. The offer states the tariff line and the duty that applies on the day.
- One brand, two exits
- A container consigned into the Colón Free Zone stays there until it is sold on; a container for the Panamanian market is nationalised on entry and goes to the importer’s warehouse. The production run is identical either way — the difference is the consignee, the label content and the file. Duty on the Panamanian side only becomes a question the day a box leaves the zone for that market, and a box that leaves for another country enters under the rules of that market, so tell us at the offer stage which exit your own brand is taking.
- The other route
- A co-packer in the region is the obvious alternative, and for a wrapped sweet or a biscuit it is often the right one. This route earns its place where that co-packer cannot follow: pistachio lines from where the pistachio grows, sugared almonds, Turkish delight and the Dubai style bar — several product groups under one brand, from our own factory, on one order and one set of documents, landed in a zone that can send them on in pieces.
- Outside our own range
- Cobertura and bulk chocolate by the kilo, pistachio paste in buckets, raw nuts, dried fruit, cocoa powder and empty packaging sit outside our core range: they are sourced on request, and we confirm composition and format before quoting. If a pastry or repostería line matters to your brand, ask for it by name and the answer will be what we can actually run.
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.
Can we launch our own brand without filling a container with one product?
Yes. The unit of sale is one full container, panelled: your own-brand line travels with other lines, each on its own pallet. What your line has to reach is its own minimum, set per line and stated in the offer, not the volume of a whole container.
Our customers are outside Panama. Can the own-brand container be consigned into the Colón Free Zone?
Yes, and for a regional own brand that is the normal case. The run is the same; the consignee, the label content and the file change. The label is then written for each market the box is going on to, and the registration or permit in each of those markets is opened by the importer there, not by us — we supply our documents that file asks for, per line.
Who prepares the Spanish label, and when is it printed?
We prepare the content from our technical data sheet; you place it in your arte final and add your details, or your importer’s, as the responsible party; we check that layout back against the data sheet; you approve it in writing. Nothing is printed before that written approval, and a second destination version is a second approval, not a variation of the first.
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, and whether the coating is chocolate or a compound coating is written per line on the offer. A compound coating is never called chocolate on a document that leaves this office.
Can you make turrón, or cobertura in blocks, with our name on it?
Turrón is not a Gaziantep line and we would rather say so than send you something near it; what we put under your brand for the same December shelf is boxed Turkish delight, dragées and gift boxes. Cobertura and bulk chocolate by the kilo sit outside our core range, as do cocoa, raw nuts, dried fruit and empty packaging: they are sourced on request, and we confirm composition and format before quoting.
Are samples free before we commit to a print run?
Samples from our running production are free of charge; you cover the courier, paid before dispatch. A sample in your own wrapper is itself a print run, so it comes after the written artwork approval, never before it.
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.
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 →