Sourcing Turkish Food Products for Spain and Spanish-Speaking Markets

Spain is the market where a Turkish supplier's opportunity is most clearly tied to a calendar. The headline story is olive oil: the world's largest producer became a major buyer of Turkish oil in the poor-harvest years, and the demand from Spanish bottlers rises and falls with the domestic crop. Around that cyclical core sits a steadier set of categories — hazelnuts for turrón and chocolate, pulses for packers, dried apricots for the bulk-retail trade — and, through the Spanish language, a long-tail reach into Mexico, Chile and the wider Latin American import market.

The olive-oil cycle

In the poor-harvest years of 2023–2024 Spain increased its olive-oil imports from Turkey by around 300%, and Spain became the second-largest buyer of Turkish olive oil after the United States, with Turkish oil positioned above the market average in the 2024–25 campaign. Turkey, meanwhile, has risen to become the world's second-largest producer, with exports reaching around 160 thousand tonnes in 2024–25. The buyers are blenders and bottlers in Jaén and Córdoba and food manufacturers who need bulk extra-virgin oil when domestic supply is short; when the Spanish harvest recovers and prices normalise, that demand eases. This makes bulk Turkish olive oil a spot-opportunity category in Spain — worth following through the Spanish agriculture ministry's foreign-trade bulletins — rather than a steady long-term contract line, and a Turkish supplier who is honest about that cyclicality earns more trust than one who oversells it.

Hazelnuts, pistachios and the turrón industry

Spain is a net hazelnut importer, taking around 5,200 tonnes of kernels a year, mostly from Turkey, to supply the turrón industry of Jijona, the chocolate and confectionery sector of Catalonia and the nut-processing trade. Pistachios follow: Spanish production is young and small, while pistachio turrón and pastry variants are growing, and the pistachio-chocolate wave has pushed European prices sharply higher. Dried apricots move into Spain's packers and bulk-retail chains on the strength of Turkey's global leadership in the category — EU imports of Turkish dried apricots were around 143.5 million US dollars in 2024 — and dried figs and sultanas follow the same route, with Turkey supplying roughly a quarter of the EU's total dried-fruit and nut imports.

Pulses: the growth category

Between half and two-thirds of the pulses consumed in Spain are imported, and Spain brings in around 50–60 thousand tonnes of lentils a year. Turkey — the world's third-largest red-lentil exporter — holds only around a 4% share of that, which makes pulses one of the clearest growth categories in the market as Spanish packers in León and Salamanca look for alternatives to North American origins with a shorter freight route. The honest caveat is that Turkey applies a periodic export-quota regime on red lentils and chickpeas to protect domestic supply, so any commitment is confirmed against the quota position at the time rather than promised in advance.

EU controls, and the Latin American difference

Spain applies the standard EU framework: Turkish dried figs carry a 30% identity and physical check rate for aflatoxin and ochratoxin A under Regulation 2025/1441 since August 2025, honey exporters need EU listed-establishment status, dried oregano is subject to a 30% check rate for pyrrolizidine alkaloids, and hazelnuts have had no special measures since 2021. Latin America is a different process entirely. Volumes remain small — the region takes around 3% of global hazelnut imports — but Mexico's food imports are growing and its chocolate industry is a natural buyer of hazelnuts and dried fruit. Mexico applies NOM labelling standards and SENASICA plant-health rules, Chile works through SAG, and these country-specific requirements are handled case by case rather than assumed from EU practice.

Working with a single sourcing partner

A Spanish bottler, turrón maker or pulse packer — or a Latin American importer reading this in Spanish — benefits from a single Turkish partner who applies the same certificate-of-analysis discipline and traceability across bulk olive oil, hazelnuts, pistachios, pulses and dried fruit, and who is candid about cyclicality and quota timing rather than glossing over them. TeraVella is transparent about which items come from its own production network — dried fruit, tea, rose products, essential oils and soap — and which are sourced through verified supplier partners; commercial terms are confirmed in the quotation stage rather than published.