History: Şekercioğlu is one of the companies producing Turkish delights and confectionary for the longest time. The population registers tell us that our ancestors moved from Bosnia to İstanbul in the second half of the 19th century, finally settling in Sarıyer. When the Russian army entered İstanbul from the east and marched on as far as Çatalca during the regression period in the Ottoman Empire caused by the 1877-78 Russo-Turkish War, the family left İstanbul for Bursa. They started producing confectionary as an addition to the production of silk in Bursa. Later on, after working for a while in M.Kemalpaşa district of Bursa, Şekerci Hasan Efendi move to and settled in Balat district (now Dursunbey) in Balıkesir. His two sons had different paths, one of them, Şekerci Salih, transferred his business to Simav, Kütahya; our great grandfather Şekerci Mehmet married in Dursunbey, Balıkesir and continued the business there. In 1909, our grandfather Şekerci Lütfi was born. While he was developing the business here, the Balkan War broke out and a mobilization order was issued in the entire Ottoman country. On the day of the announcement of this military campaign in Dursunbey, Şekerci Mehmet left his kitchen where he was boiling the candy preparation to his Turkish-Greek assistant master and went to war on the Galicia and Batumi fronts. Then, he was sent to the Gallipoli fronts in World War I after a ten days break, fought for the Ottoman Empire’s dreams of capturing back the lands it lost during the Balkan Wars. Since the coalition that included the Ottoman army was defeated, they were disarmed and kept as prisoners of war in a barracks in İstanbul. He and his several friends managed to drill a hole on the prison wall and escaped from death in the hands of the British soldiers and they fled with a small boat, which helped them reach Bandırma after many adventures and difficulties. In his words, this period of scarceness, hard toil and captivity took “ten days less than ten years” and he was one of the six survivors from the 600 soldiers from Dursunbey. He eventually arrived to his hometown which was under Greek occupation at the time. 

During the occupation years, the Greek assistant master of him prevented the Greek army from making any harm to the shop and thus they were able to run the shop without any major problems. Şekerci Mehmet’s son Lütfi was around 3-4 years old when the war broke out and he was taken care of by his uncle in Simav, who had an injury and became permanently disabled in the great Simav fire, thereby being unable to join the war. When Şekerci Mehmet returned to his house, he met his son again, as a healthy teenager after so many years. 

The liberation of the country and the proclamation of the Republic was followed by the Surname Act as one of the Rebuplican Reform Acts and Şekerci Mehmet was given the surname “Şekercioğlu” because of the profession of his father. 

Lütfi Şekercioğlu married to our grandmother Cemile Şekercioğlu and their eldest son, our father, Mustafa Şekercioğlu was born in 1944. Our father, Mustafa Şekercioğlu, was initiated in the profession with a traditional ceremony of Turkish guild members and dressed properly with the traditional robes during this ritual. His grandfather initiated him in the profession by uttering these sentences: “Your craft will give you what the Sultan of the country is not able to give. May god help you and make you successful. Appreciate the value of your skills and craft, son”. Today, the only family members that continue the family business are us. 

From that day on, the founder of our company, Mustafa Şekercioğlu, has revitalized the traditional Ottoman delicacies that are exclusive to Turkish cuisine such as pastes, delights and various kinds of confectionary with a new and strong venture and marketed these products not under our brand name but as an outsourcer for the domestic and international marketing networks that have widespread delivery systems all over the world. 

Our company’s current vision is to establish a stronger branding and a better technical substructure. Our product range includes pastes, hard candies, preserves and confectionary.