Our story
We did not invent anything. We just refused to change it.
TurkelloFoods started with a simple feeling: missing the taste you grew up with. Tahini and molasses on the breakfast table. A slice of halva next to hot tea. The smell of sesame in your grandmother's kitchen. Some things you simply cannot find in a shop abroad.
Chapter one
The seed
Sesame is an old crop. It was grown long before anyone wrote recipes down, and it survived because it asks for very little and gives a great deal. What matters is not where a seed is fashionable this season, but whether it is harvested ripe and kept dry. Damp sesame turns bitter, and no amount of roasting will hide it. So the work starts before the mill: choosing whole seeds, hulling them, and roasting them slowly until the oil inside begins to wake up. That is the moment the smell fills the room. Nothing is added here, because nothing needs to be.
Chapter two
The stones
A steel mill is fast. It is also hot, and heat is the enemy of sesame. It scorches the paste, flattens the flavour and leaves a bitterness you can taste at the back of your throat. Stone mills turn slowly and stay cool. The seeds are pressed rather than shredded, and the oil is released at its own pace. It takes longer and it costs more, and that is the entire reason it tastes the way it does. When you open a jar and find the oil resting on top, that is not a fault. That is what tahini looks like when nothing has been added to hold it together.
Chapter three
The fruit
Molasses is made the same stubborn way. Grapes, mulberries or carob are boiled down slowly until the water leaves and the sugar that was always in the fruit concentrates on its own. No sugar is added, because the fruit already brought it. What remains is dark, thick and mineral-rich — the sweetener that was on Anatolian tables for centuries before anyone had heard of refined sugar.
Chapter four
The halva
Halva is where tahini meets heat and patience. It is pulled by hand, in small batches, because the texture is decided in the last few minutes and a machine cannot feel when that moment arrives. Our Halva Cake — 450 grams, five flavours from pistachio and chocolate to delicate rose — is the product we are proudest of, and the one that keeps selling out.
What we promise
- Short ingredient lists. Read the label on any jar we sell; you will be done quickly.
- No preservatives, no artificial colours, no palm oil.
- No added sugar in our tahini and molasses.
- Plant-based throughout, suitable for a vegan diet.
- Shipped from our own warehouse in the Netherlands, usually within 24 hours.
From our table to yours
Everything leaves our warehouse in the Netherlands in protective packaging and reaches most of Europe within one to three working days. For the Turkish community abroad it tastes like home. For everyone else, it is a discovery.
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