A Taste of Nature

Considering its clement climate and fertile terrain, Turkey is perhaps ideally positioned to provide a hugely rich, assorted range of food types. Because of this lush, geographic diversity, Turkey is one of the few major global distributors that is able to cultivate and offer a broad gamut of produce.

It’s an industry which, despite the global challenges faced since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, has continued to see impressive growth for Turkey.

While many major economies saw global exports contract during the pandemic, exports from Turkey saw a relatively encouraging increase, with an economic growth rate of 1.8 percent across 2020.

According to numbers published by the Turkish Exporters Assembly, Turkey exported just under $10 billion in food and fresh produce in the first half of 2021, at a total of $9.96 billion, representing a 20 percent increase on the same period of time in 2020.

The single most lucrative sector for exports in 2020 was cereal and oil seeds – worth some $7.3bn – and it stands clear ahead of the two other highest-yielding sectors (fruit and vegetables at $2.7bn, and seafood and animal products at $2.5bn).

Individual categories with the highest level of exports from Turkey also include seeds and legumes for oils, fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, cereals, grains, pastas and flours, plus meat, seafood and fish too.

For example, bulgur wheat is one of the most amenable, multi-purpose grains which is steeped in Anatolian history and heritage. Used in family recipes across Turkey for millennia, bulgur wheat is known for its wide-ranging uses, and represents one of the country’s biggest annual produce and agricultural exports with more than 1 million tonnes produced and more than a quarter of a million tonnes distributed globally.

Owing to their importance as part of Turkish family rituals, café culture and social norms, it is unsurprising to see tea and coffee rank highly among Turkish agricultural exports. Like tea and coffee, Turkey’s most significant exports come from a deeply ingrained heritage and a natural production process that shares this cultural identity and source of national pride with a global audience.

Naturally occurring spices and edible plants from Turkey’s wealth of botanical diversity also comprise a significant part of the country’s annual exports – pointing towards Eastern Anatolia’s heritage of cultivating plants for food, medicine and other uses, dating back thousands of years with ancient human civilisations known to have settled in the region because of its climate, rich biodiversity and fertile lands. It is these conditions which make an ideal home to the bountiful range of herbs, spices and popular medicinal and aromatic flora.

Known for having grown across Anatolia for more than 6,000 years, the olive perfectly encapsulates Mediterranean living and the appeal of premium-quality Turkish exports.

With more than 100 different varieties of olive grown across the country, Turkish olive oil is a protected product with strict regulations guaranteeing the purity and authenticity of the oil – and ensuring a high standard for the quality of globally exported olive oil today.

Specifically, Turkey is the largest global exporter of healthy and sun-dried figs, dried apricots and sultanas (as well as the second largest distributor of cherries) thanks, in no small part, to the country’s rich agricultural ecosystems. It is also the world’s biggest exporter of hazelnuts, a fundamental ingredient in increasingly popular chocolate products like gianduja chocolate/hazelnut spreads and confectionary. Turkish hazelnuts are exported to more than 150 countries around the world, and account for some 65 to 70 percent of the world’s supply of hazelnuts – which demonstrates how vital this trading line is for the world’s sweet treat industry.

For generations, the history, culture, artisanal production techniques, agricultural expertise and arable land have caused Turkish cuisine to reach far and wide globally.

Thanks to the huge variety available and growing global market awareness, Turkish produce is now being ingrained into the cuisines of cultures around the world.