This week, the European Candy Kettle Club announced that Erdoğan Çoban, CEO of Şölen, Turkey, has received the 2025 European Candy Kettle Award. The award ceremony will take place in October 2025 in Istanbul. Şölen placed #40 on Candy Industry's Global Top 100 list in 2024. 

Çoban says: “Winning the Professional Excellence Award, one of the most prestigious awards in the European confectionery and snacks industry, fills us with great pride. Our foremost priority has always been, and will continue to be, quality and taste. Carrying out our work with passion is the main element that propels us towards success. With this award, we have once again affirmed the high quality of our brands and our strength in advanced technology and innovation. I express my gratitude to the members of the European Candy Kettle Club. We eagerly look forward to the award ceremony in İstanbul.”  

The European Candy Kettle Club says it chose Çoban because of Şölen's most innovative and highest-quality chocolate and confectionery products; because it is a young, inspiring and progressing company, which "thinks chocolate" in a completely different and sustainable way; because it represents Turkish confectionery in a modern and sustainable way; and because it continues the path of tradition and innovation.

Founded in 1989, Şölen is one of the leading companies in the Turkish snack sector. The company gained significant momentum with exports in 1991 and joined the TurqualityProgram in 2007. Şölen's facilities in Gaziantep and Istanbul have an annual production capacity of 330,000 tons. The Gaziantep facility has a smart warehouse, lines for artificial intelligence, and robots, and the company has over 3000 employees.

Related: Daniel Bloch receives European Candy Kettle Award