Turkey: 2024 export results

25/02/2025

François-Xavier Branthôme

Trade Data Monitor

Turkey,

Middle East

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In 2023, Turkey ranked seventh in the world for exports of tomato pastes, the same for canned goods, and twelfth for sauces and ketchups. Over the past year, all these sectors have made progress, with moderate gains in the pastes sector and spectacular gains in the canned tomatoes and sauces sectors.

The Turkish tomato processing industry is one of the few countries to be significantly active in each of the three major export sectors for tomato derivatives worldwide.
In 2024, with over 177,000 t of tomato pastes (code 200290) exported to more than one hundred and forty countries, the Turkish result was 4% up on the calendar year 2023 but, due to the exceptional increase recorded in 2021 and 2022, was also 24% down on the average for the previous three years (see also related articles below). For the record, the sudden acceleration in the pace of Turkish tomato paste exports in 2021 and especially 2022 corresponded with a sharp rise in deliveries to the Iraqi market, the crossroads of Turkish, Iranian and Chinese competition (see also additional information below).

Over the last five years, exports of tomato pastes have generated more than three-quarters of the total value of Turkish exports of industrial tomato products, while foreign sales of canned tomatoes (code 200210) and tomato sauces and ketchup (code 210320) have accounted for 15% and 8% respectively of the sector's total revenues. Alongside variations in demand, export revenues have also seen changes in the relative importance of the different sectors: for example, exports of pastes, which accounted for over 80% of Turkish revenues in 2014, have gradually given way to preserves and sauces, which in 2024 accounted for over a third of the total value of Turkish foreign sales of tomato derivatives.

Last year, the total value of Turkish exports in the sector amounted to almost 353 million USD, down 3% on the 2023 result. Tomato paste exports alone generated almost 234 million USD.

Turkey's commercial sphere is essentially based on nearby destinations; the historical base is made up of Middle Eastern countries, led by Iraq and Saudi Arabia. However, the weight of this region is tending to diminish: alongside these eminently variable outlets, old markets that were relatively secondary until 2019 have recorded spectacular developments in recent years: sales of Turkish tomato pastes to the Western European Union (Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France, etc.) have risen sharply over the last five years, from 31 million USD in 2019 to 130 million USD in 2024. Outside the EU, British purchases of Turkish tomato pastes followed a similar progression, from 6 to 19 million USD over the same period, while sales to the Japanese market increased from 8 to 24 million USD. Similar dynamics, albeit less intense, are driving trade with other regions, notably Non-EU Europe, the Far East, North America, Eurasia, etc.

The growth dynamics of external sales in the other two sectors are more regular than those of tomato pastes. However, they are no less spectacular, with an increase of over 160% between 2019 (13,800 t) and 2024 (36,700 t) for the canned sector, and almost 70% over the same period for the sauces and ketchups sector (19,800 t in 2019 and 33,400 t in 2024).

In both cases, the bulk of external sales are destined for European markets and, to a lesser extent, Middle and Far Eastern markets (UK, Germany, Italy, Belgium, France, Poland, Georgia, Russia, Iraq, Syria, Japan).