Sourcing Turkish Food Products for the UK Market

The UK left the EU's regulatory system but not its appetite for Turkish food. UK food, feed and drink imports reached £64.1 billion in 2024, and Turkey holds a 16% share of UK processed-fruit imports from outside the EU — the largest of any non-EU supplier in that category. The practical difference since Brexit is procedural, not commercial: the products in demand are the same, but the compliance path now runs through the UK's own system rather than Brussels'.

Where the demand is concentrated

Sultanas are the clearest anchor category: Turkey's İzmir region is the primary source for UK sultanas, feeding a baking industry that has relied on that supply line for decades. Dried apricots follow the same pattern, with Malatya-origin fruit dominant and Turkey holding a meaningful share of UK processed-fruit imports overall. Hazelnuts move steadily into UK confectionery and bakery production, and Turkish delight and baklava have picked up sharply on the back of an established Turkish retail network and a Turkish restaurant sector growing at roughly 7% a year — a trend visible in both ethnic wholesale channels and the wider foodservice market. Herbal tea is a newer growth line: the UK is one of Europe's fastest-expanding markets for it, with private-label loose-leaf demand from both established brands and newer wellness labels.

What changed with Brexit — and what didn't

The UK now runs the Border Target Operating Model (BTOM), a risk-based sanitary and phytosanitary control regime built and updated independently of the EU. At the point of departure the UK inherited the EU's increased-control lists — including the heightened checks then in place on products like Turkish dried figs — and has since revised its own list on its own timeline. This means a UK-specific control rate should be confirmed before shipment rather than assumed to mirror whatever applies in the EU that season. Animal-origin products, honey included, require a UK veterinary health certificate that sits entirely outside the general food documentation set.

What UK due diligence checks

None of the procedural change reduces the underlying documentation expectation. UK buyers still want a batch-specific Certificate of Analysis, contaminant testing suited to the product, and complete lot traceability back to origin. Labelling carries its own UK-specific requirements — a UK-based food business operator (FBO) address, UKCA marking where relevant, and English-language compliance — which a supplier needs to produce as a separate deliverable from any EU-facing labelling, not a variant of it.

Working with a single sourcing partner

Because UK demand spans several categories — dried fruit, hazelnuts, confectionery, herbal tea, natural soap for the boutique-hotel and eco-retail channel — a buyer bringing in more than one product line can simplify the relationship considerably by working through a single verified Turkish partner. That partner holds the specification, tracks which BTOM control tier applies to each product, and manages UK-specific labelling and certification so the buyer is not reconciling two separate compliance systems on every shipment.

The UK market has not become harder to sell into since Brexit — it has become a market with its own rulebook. Buyers who confirm the current UK-specific requirements before shipping move faster than those still working from EU-era assumptions.