Turkey's Sugar And Chocolate Confectionery Industry

The Turkish confectionery sector has always been dynamic thanks to Turkey’s young and growing population, and traditional habits of consumption.

Sugar confectionery plays a great role in Turkish tradition, being widely served as gifts during religious festivals, wedding ceremonies and celebrations. It is also a common choice of present when visiting family or friends. This traditional popularity means sugar confectionery performs much better in Turkey than in many other countries.

However, despite their popularity, traditional confectionery products are strongly challenged by other confectionery products, particularly chocolate confectionery. Chocolate confectionery is one of the most dynamic product in Turkey thanks to several factors, such as the young and rapidly growing population and their growing demand for chocolate with toys, developing distribution channels, manufacturers’ heavy advertisements, new product developments and increasing multinational investments. The most popular types of chocolate confectionery are countlines, tablets and boxed assortments. Manufacturers have successfully diversified the number and type of products available.

The gum sector is another dynamic area within confectionery. The Turkish gum market is very competitive thanks to presence of powerful local and multinational companies, which have been operating for a long time in the market. Production of sweet gum, sugar-free gum, functional gum and bubble gum has steadily increased since 2000.

Turkey has the advantage of being self-sufficient in sugar which is one of the main confectionery ingredients. Turkey is also in a very advantageous situation thanks to its dominance in the world production of dried fruits (dried apricots, raisins, dried figs) and edible nuts (hazelnuts, pistachios).