Turkish hazelnut export sales hit record high in 2014

ANKARA - Anadolu Agency

DHA Photo

Turkey, the world’s largest hazelnut producer, earned $2.3 billion from hazelnut exports in 2014, the Hazelnut Promotion Group announced late Jan. 4. 

Turkey shipped more than 252,500 tons of hazelnuts to almost 110 countries in 2014, said the head of the Hazelnut Promotion Group, Edip Sevinç.

Hazelnut prices have risen more than 80 percent from last year, from six Turkish Liras ($2.5) a kilogram to 10.5 liras ($4.5).

Despite losing a third of its hazelnut harvest due to storms and unusual freezing weather, which destroyed part of the harvest in late March 2014 and drove up prices, Turkey’s hazelnut producers still met more than 70 percent of the world’s hazelnut demand, the Black Sea Exporters Union, Turkey’s main hazelnut production group, said last year.

Exporters from Turkey denied statements that have appeared in foreign media that chocolate companies had been looking for alternative suppliers of hazelnuts.

“Foreign currency inflow from exporting hazelnuts is a record in the history of the modern republic,” Sevinç said.

The country is the largest producer of hazelnuts in the world and its production accounts for approximately 75 percent of worldwide production. Production of hazelnuts in Turkey usually reaches nearly 600,000 tons a year.

A quarter of Turkey’s total production is handled by European chocolate giant Ferrero, which is famous for its Nutella brand. The EU takes the biggest share in Turkey’s hazelnut exports.

Italy’s Ferrero said July 20, 2014, that it had bought the Turkish company Oltan, one of the world leaders in hazelnut production and which has annual revenue of more than $500 million and five production plants. Oltan exports to the EU and to 80 countries around the world.

Turkey exported 276,000 tons of hazelnuts worth $1.76 billion in 2013, and 265,000 tons of hazelnuts worth $1.8 billion in 2012.