SYRIA: Al-Sultan sweet factory sets a new record for creating the largest box of oriental sweets in the world

Record ID: 279065

  • Title: SYRIA: Al-Sultan sweet factory sets a new record for creating the largest box of oriental sweets in the world
  • Date: 15th July 2010
  • Summary: SWEETS IN BOX
  • Embargoed: 30th July 2010 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
  • Reuters ID: LVAABY0Z2YCWJU102PI1STEXVOHT
  • Story Text: Made up of several hundred thousand individual sweets, this enormous Syrian sweets box has made its way into the Guinness Book of World Records.
    At 112 metres long and with a surface area of 135.12 square meters, the box, containing such sweets as "backlava" and "bourma," has earned itself the title of the world's largest box of oriental sweets ever.
    The Guinness Judge officially declared the box a prize-winner on Wednesday (July 14), presenting an award to the general manager of Syria's Sultan Factory, Samer al-Kasir and praising the factory staff for their work.
    He said the creation of the sweets box, which is set out like a mosaic and features depictions of famous Syrian monuments, was a huge achievement.
    "Frankly, I am really impressed by this record. It is a special record. The food categories are usually measured as the biggest plate but today al-Sultan sweets was able to make an artistic tableau made of sweets which is a great piece of work. I congratulate them on this," Talal Omar told Reuters.
    The box, made up of famous oriental and Syrian sweets made from layers of filo-like dough and filled with ground nuts and syrup, took two months to put together and contains more than six hundred thousands pieces of the pastry-like sweets.
    The factory's general manager said Syrian sweets had a distinctive taste and were made with top-quality ingredients.
    But while the Syrian sweets market is now worth around two billion Syrian pounds (approx. 40 million U.S. dollars) in exports, the volume of sweets being shipped abroad has decreased.
    According to Kasir, the main reason is the high price of pistachios, which is the main ingredient in the Syrian sweets industry.
    "Some factories have had to decrease their costs because of the high prices and this has led to poor quality. We faced the problem that, because the amount of pistachios being exported had increased, the prices had increased a lot so we reduced the amount of sweets we exported by more than 50% in Syria," he said.
    It is the seventh time Syria has made it into the Guinness Book of Records. In 2008, a Damascus restaurant was declared by Guinness as the largest in the world.
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