Hazelnut shortage affecting German chocolate producers

World famous chocolatiers in Germany are suffering because of the decline in nut production and the resulting price increases in Turkey. Stocks of groundnuts in German supermarkets have run out and chocolate producers that import nuts from Turkey are facing problems in terms of their stock. Speaking to Anadolu Agency, the spokesman for the German Confectionary Industrialist Association (BDSI), Solveig Schneider, said that many producers cannot find hazelnuts in the supermarkets and added, "The German confectionary companies, especially the ones that produce cookies and chocolate containing nuts, are in a critical situation." Emphasizing that the majority of the tons of nuts that are processed in Germany's confectionary industry are imported from Turkey, Schneider said that 75 percent of 102,000 tons of nuts were imported from Turkey in 2013 and are used in products sold at supermarkets or produced at patisseries. Schneider noted that since one of the main ingredients in cookies consumed around the Christmas holiday is nuts, almonds are now being used in Christmas cookies instead. "However, this has caused technical and packaging processes used in the food industry to change and the product does not meet the requirements of the consumers," Schneider said. Thomas Feger, the spokesman of Ritter Sport, the leading chocolatier importing nuts from Turkey, announced that they have always purchased the yield from the previous year for many years; therefore, the company is not experiencing a nut shortage. Yet, he also said that the highest quality products were imported from the Black Sea Region and that they have been adversely affected by the increasing prices. "The doubled costs are an incredible increase given that hazelnuts constitute 23 percent of hazelnut chocolates." Feger said.