Turkish cookies made in Romania

At the local gourmet store a new product turned up.  This is the place where we usually pick up Tate's cookies when there is nothing else to be expected.  They do have some other interesting products including Bahlsen, Walker's Shortbread, Quadratinis and so on.  This time around something else appeared namely cookies from a company called Ülker.  Our linguistic knowledge immediately tells us that with an Ü in the name it must be either German or Turkish.  If you guessed Turkish you guessed right!

Something new via Turkey and Romania

 As it turns out, according to their website, Ülker is...

....a sweet history of succes. Ülker is the biggest consumer goods company in Turkey, set up in 1944. Well known for its sweets, an area where the long-term tradition has ensured a solid trust in its high quality products, Ulker Group has boldly extended its portfolio with other categories: dairy products, margarine, coffee, soft drinks, ice cream and many others.

Hazelnut Shortbread

Can you imagine that in spite of the fact for years we have had Turkish colleagues and grad students we had to discover Ülker ourselves at a Providence grocery store?  Apparently there is more to Turkish sweets than Turkish delights and baklava.  The only catch is though the company is based in Turkey these days all their cookie like products are made in Romania. So we got Turkish cookies made in Romania.  Again according to their website:

The duo refers to the interwoven vanilla and chocolate

In Romania, Ulker has been enchanting the consumers of all ages for more than 15 years. At the beginning, they were only enjoying imported Ulker products, but as of 2005 they were able to enjoy biscuits or snacks made in Romania. This is mainly due to the fact that, in 2004, Ulker Group has selected Romania in order to expand its production facilities. With an area of 20,000 square meters, located on a land of approximately 10 hectares, the Ulker factory is part of an investment project of more than USD 23 million

A little blurry but it confirms they were made in Romania

And this is what they looked like!

Clearly they are happy with their Romanian Investment!  The cookies that we had were indeed manufactured at the Romanian plant.  We had two kinds - their hazelnut cookies and what the brand called Biskrem Duo which were round shortbread type cookies with vanilla and chocolate flavors.  The cookies taste fine and seemed to be suitable, like most shortbread type cookies are, to afternoon coffee or tea or cake hour, of course.  We enjoyed the cookies but truth be told they are not quite the same level as other "gourmet" types. They are probably about the same level as Keebler.  Since Keebler is more abundant and tends to be cheaper I'm not sure we'll rush to get more of the Ülker products but we were happy, as we always are, to broaden our horizons even more!