How is the harvest/processing of Turkiye Figs?
Figs are mostly picked when a stage of full ripeness occurs. Unlike other fruits, figs do not ripen after harvest, and the timing of the harvest must be right. Also, the handling of fruits must be done carefully to avoid bruising. Figs, sorted according to their size and filled into plastic containers or crates, are taken by the suppliers coming to the region and offered to the domestic market. For some variates of figs, like yellow figs, growers wait until the fruit fall to the ground, and then the sun dries the fig.
How Is the Supply Chain Structured for Turkiye Dried Figs?
Grower-> Local Trader-> Packing house/Exporter -> Importer-> Wholesaler/Retailer -> Consumer
Growers sell dried figs to the packing house/exporter. Usually, more prominent exporters have their in-house production. Due to a vast number of growers (over 100K families growing figs), packing houses don’t have contracts with the growers, which makes collecting figs from these farms difficult. Small farms, and lower production, makes logistic regarding transportation and supply time-consuming. On the other side, organic fig growers sign contracts with factories. Still, the production share of organic figs makes less than 5% of total fig production. Local traders collect figs from local farmers and resell larger volumes to the packing houses. The packing centers will sort, shape, wash, etc., the figs and afterward export dried figs. The export season usually starts around the end of September. Most buyers of dried figs are agent/importer companies.