A Turkish food company can earn substantial revenue abroad without exporting much from Turkey. It can also export heavily while keeping every factory at home. Those businesses may reach the same customers, but they carry different costs, currency risks and capital needs.
Export revenue measures a cross-border sales activity. Overseas production identifies where goods are manufactured. Neither figure, on its own, tells you how much profit belongs to shareholders or how much cash can reach the listed parent.
For investors assessing Turkish food export opportunities, the task is to separate customer location, production location, invoicing currency and ownership. A single “international sales” percentage cannot do all four jobs.
Export Revenue and Overseas Production Measure Different Things
Consider two confectionery businesses selling to German supermarkets. One makes sweets in Turkey and ships them to Germany. The other manufactures in Poland and supplies Germany from there. Both have German customer exposure. Only the first transaction involves an export from Turkey.
A third business could buy finished products from another manufacturer and distribute them abroad. It would have international sales without owning the factory that made the goods. Commercial reach and manufacturing exposure are separate questions.
| Measure | What it tells you | What it does not establish |
|---|---|---|
| Exports from Turkey | Sales associated with goods shipped out of Turkey | The group’s total foreign customer revenue |
| Revenue from foreign customers | Where customers are located under the reporting policy | Where the products were manufactured |
| Overseas manufacturing | Where the group operates production facilities | Whether their output is sold locally or exported elsewhere |
| Foreign subsidiary revenue | Sales recorded by an overseas legal entity | Whether it manufactures, distributes or does both |
| Foreign currency sales | The currency used to price or invoice sales | The production location or net currency exposure |
These categories overlap. A foreign distribution subsidiary can sell products imported from Turkey, products made by another overseas subsidiary and goods bought from outside suppliers. Adding every international figure together is a reliable way to count the same biscuit twice.
Read the Reporting Basis Before Calculating an Exposure Ratio
Start with the definition beneath the chart. “International operations,” “foreign sales” and “exports” should not be treated as interchangeable labels. Establish whether a figure follows the customer, the selling subsidiary or the production business.
IFRS 8 distinguishes geographical revenue information from geographical asset information. Paragraph 33 requires disclosure of the basis used to attribute external customer revenue to countries, subject to the standard’s availability and cost exception. That distinction matters: a revenue map is not a factory map. The IFRS 8 geographical disclosure requirements provide the accounting starting point.
Next, identify the denominator. An export ratio calculated against the Turkish parent’s standalone sales is not directly comparable with one calculated against consolidated group revenue. The latter includes the wider consolidated business, rather than just the parent company.
Keep the reporting period and measurement basis consistent too. Do not divide an export figure from a trade ranking by revenue from a different financial year. Likewise, avoid mixing inflation-adjusted financial statements with unadjusted presentation figures.
A useful comparison records the numerator, denominator, period, currency and reporting perimeter beside every percentage. If the company does not disclose enough detail, mark the exposure as undisclosed. A neat spreadsheet is not a substitute for missing evidence.
A Worked Example: Three Routes to the Same Foreign Customer
Assume a hypothetical food group reports €100 million of consolidated revenue from outside customers. Products made in Turkey and sold domestically contribute €50 million. Turkish production sold to foreign customers contributes €30 million. Products manufactured abroad and sold to foreign customers contribute the remaining €20 million.
On those assumptions, foreign customer revenue is 50% of group sales. Turkish export sales to external customers represent 30%, while overseas manufactured products contribute 20%. Describing the group as “a 50% exporter” would misstate the production exposure.
Now consider a separate transaction. A Turkish factory sells goods to its wholly owned German distributor for €12 million. The distributor sells those goods to outside customers for €15 million. The two entities’ standalone revenues total €27 million, but consolidated external revenue from that chain is €15 million.
Consolidation eliminates sales within the group. It also distinguishes profit attributable to the parent’s owners from profit attributable to non-controlling shareholders. These are separate adjustments, not reasons to multiply every subsidiary’s revenue by its ownership percentage. The relevant framework is IFRS 10 consolidation procedures and ownership attribution.
For example, assume a parent controls and consolidates a factory subsidiary despite owning only 70%. The subsidiary’s €20 million of external revenue is included in full, not reduced to €14 million. If its profit is €2 million, a simple proportional allocation would leave €1.4 million attributable to the parent, before other adjustments.
The investment question is therefore twofold: how much business does the group conduct abroad, and how much of its resulting profit belongs to the listed company’s shareholders?
What Turkish Food Company Disclosures Can Reveal
Ülker: international revenue is broader than Turkish exports
Ülker’s full-year 2025 presentation provides a clear example. Its revenue chart showed 70% domestic and 30% international revenue. A separate breakdown identified Turkish exports at 14% of total revenue, alongside the Middle East at 10%, North Africa at 3% and Central Asia at 3%. The figures were presented on an IAS 29 adjusted basis in the Ülker fourth-quarter 2025 investor presentation.
The practical lesson is not that one percentage is preferable. They answer different questions. The 30% figure describes a broader international revenue category; the 14% figure identifies Turkish exports within that breakdown. Neither percentage alone establishes the location of every input, the currency of every cost or the group’s net currency sensitivity.
Ownership adds another boundary. Before treating a brand, factory or foreign business as part of an investment, check whether it belongs to the listed company rather than another company under the same controlling group. The distinction between Ülker, pladis and Yıldız Holding ownership belongs in that assessment.
Kervan Gıda: production facilities and sales offices are different assets
Kervan Gıda’s 2025 corporate presentation identified production facilities in Turkey, Poland and Egypt, while separately listing sales offices in markets including the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and France. This separates manufacturing presence from distribution presence within the same business, as shown in the Kervan Gıda 2025 corporate presentation.
A sales office is not evidence of local manufacturing. Conversely, an overseas factory can supply several countries, not just its home market. To assess exposure, follow the goods from production to the outside customer, then follow the associated costs and ownership interests.
Why Currency Exposure Changes With the Production Model
An exporter with Turkish factories may receive euros or dollars while paying part of its wage, utility and service bills in lira. That can create sensitivity to changes between selling currencies and operating costs. It does not guarantee that lira depreciation improves margins.
Imported ingredients, packaging, machinery, freight and foreign currency debt can offset the apparent benefit. Customers may also demand lower prices. The relevant question is how exchange rates affect the remaining cash margin, not how much revenue carries a foreign currency label.
An overseas manufacturer may have a closer match between local sales and local costs. In a simplified example, €10 million of sales and €7 million of operating cash costs leave a €3 million surplus before financing and tax. Treating the full €10 million as an unmatched euro exposure would ignore most of the operating model.
Keep three questions separate: which currency drives sales, which currencies drive costs, and which currency you use to measure your investment return. The relationship between the Turkish lira, food exporters and foreign shareholders requires more than an export percentage.
In particular, a rise in reported lira revenue does not, by itself, prove that a foreign business sold more products or earned a better local margin. Check volume, pricing, local operating performance and cash generation before drawing that inference.
Overseas Factories Change the Capital and Risk Profile
Production abroad can put a company closer to customers and give it another supply base. It also commits money to buildings, equipment, inventory and local operations. Compare those commitments with the cash the business generates, not just the revenue it adds.
Suppose two hypothetical companies each earn €40 million from foreign customers. One exports from an established Turkish plant. The other has recently spent €25 million building an overseas factory. Their foreign revenue is identical, but their investment requirements and near-term cash returns may be very different.
For an exporter, examine freight costs, delivery times, customer credit and reliance on Turkish production. For an overseas manufacturer, add plant utilisation, maintenance spending, local management costs and the return on the capital committed abroad.
Local production does not remove cross-border risk either. A foreign factory may import ingredients from Turkey or depend on another market for most of its sales. Its address tells you where production happens, not where every vulnerability sits.
Finally, distinguish cash generated by an overseas subsidiary from cash available to the parent. Assess local borrowing, reinvestment needs, minority ownership and any disclosed distribution constraints before assuming that subsidiary earnings can fund parent dividends.
Build an Exposure Map From the Disclosures
A useful review produces a short reconciliation rather than one headline percentage. Work through the following sequence:
- Set the company boundary. Identify the listed parent, consolidated subsidiaries, ownership percentages and other investments.
- Map production. Record factory locations, operating status and disclosed capacity or output. Do not treat planned capacity as current production.
- Map outside customers. Separate external revenue from sales between group entities, and record how geography is assigned.
- Connect earnings to cash. Compare margins, capital spending, working capital and financing needs across the available business divisions.
Use financial statement notes to test presentation charts, especially where subsidiary ownership or reporting categories have changed. A structured approach to Turkish company reports and KAP disclosures helps keep the figures tied to the correct legal entities and reporting periods.
Do not force a complete numerical split if the disclosures cannot support it. Revenue from an overseas subsidiary may combine locally manufactured products with imports from Turkey. Without a reconciliation, label that mix as unresolved rather than estimating a precise production share.
National export data answers a different question again: it measures trade flows, not the full international business of Turkish listed companies. Overseas production should not be added to Turkey’s exports, while company revenue should not automatically be expected to match customs-based figures. Keep those boundaries clear when reading Turkish food export statistics.
Judge the Exposure, Not the Label
A high export ratio is not automatically better than overseas production, and an international factory network is not automatically safer than a Turkish production base. Each model can earn attractive returns or consume cash without adequate reward.
The useful investment description is precise: where goods are made, where customers buy them, which currencies drive the margin, how much capital supports the business and what shareholders actually own. Once those questions are answered, “international exposure” becomes something you can assess rather than a label you have to trust.