DURUKAN SEKERLEME SANAYI VE TICARETANONIM SIRKETI

Their core work

Durukan Confectionery is a Turkish manufacturer of sugar and chocolate products based in Ankara. They participate in EU-funded R&D as an industrial end-user, bringing something most academic partners cannot offer: a live commercial production environment, authentic product samples, and real manufacturing constraints. Their two H2020 projects address the two most pressing challenges in modern food manufacturing — sustainable packaging and product quality assurance. As a non-SME private company, they have the scale and operational depth to serve as a credible industrial validator in European research consortia.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Durukan's first H2020 project (upPE-T, from 2020) placed them squarely in environmental research territory — upcycling plastic waste into biodegradable packaging, a topic tangential to their core food business but highly relevant to their packaging supply chain. A year later, they joined SuChAQuality, a project that addresses their actual production expertise: quality and authenticity testing for sugar and chocolate. The trajectory suggests a company that entered EU collaboration through a sustainability-driven gateway, then moved toward R&D projects that directly strengthen their manufacturing competitiveness.

Durukan appears to be progressing from peripheral environmental collaboration toward R&D that directly addresses product quality, authenticity, and regulatory compliance at the core of their confectionery business — making them an increasingly relevant partner for food industry quality innovation projects.

How they like to work

Durukan has participated exclusively as a consortium partner in both projects, never as coordinator, which is consistent with an industrial company that contributes practical manufacturing access and end-user validation rather than scientific or project management leadership. Their two projects collectively span 31 unique partners across 16 countries, suggesting they are embedded in genuinely diverse, large-scale consortia rather than small bilateral collaborations. Working with them likely means access to a Turkish commercial food production facility and authentic industrial test conditions — a contribution that is concrete and bounded, not open-ended research.

With 31 unique consortium partners across 16 countries from just two projects, Durukan has established a surprisingly broad European and international research network relative to their project count. This breadth reflects the large, multi-partner structures typical of MSCA-RISE and RIA funding schemes rather than repeated bilateral partnerships.

What sets them apart

Durukan occupies a rare position in EU food research consortia as a commercial-scale Turkish confectionery manufacturer — offering industrial validation access that most European academic partners must otherwise simulate or approximate in lab conditions. Within the Turkish food manufacturing sector, their engagement with two H2020 projects makes them early movers in EU R&D collaboration, giving them exposure to European quality standards, sustainability regulation, and research methodologies ahead of most domestic competitors. For consortium builders, they provide both a non-EU industrial end-user perspective and direct access to the Turkish confectionery market — a combination that strengthens geographic and sectoral breadth in project applications.

Highlights from their portfolio

• SuChAQuality
  Directly aligned with Durukan's core business, this RIA project developing alternative quality and authenticity methods for sugar and chocolate makes Durukan a highly relevant industrial partner for any future food quality or fraud detection initiative.
• upPE-T
  Notable for its thematic distance from confectionery — a plastic waste upcycling project — demonstrating Durukan's willingness to engage in cross-sector sustainability research with implications for their packaging supply chain.