The Turkish packing company Narpak started to developed its agriculture production in 2013. This year, Narpak will start its second fruit harvest.“We’ve chosen this region for two main reasons. Firstly, it is a very early production area with a high number of chilling hours. The other reason is the excellent soil in this region,” says Deniz Deletioglu of Narpak. "We are almost finished our early apricot harvesting."
“Traditionally we were an importer of bananas. Later we started buying and exporting apples and other types of fruit from Turkish growers. Three years ago we started our own production by investing in a total of 900 hectares.”
“We’re now the only grower of Arra-grapes in Turkey. We also grow apricots and have about 110 hectares dedicated to growing Classical and Colorcot varieties. We’ve been building up our orchards in the last couple of years. Year on year, the production of the newly planted trees should rise.”
“Our main reason for starting out as growers is the amount of control it gives us over our products. We can keep tabs on the trends in demands from the markets. This way we can control our quality, reduce our costs for acquiring fruit, become more competitive and in general grow as a company.”
According to Deniz, starting out as a grower has been hard. “It’s been difficult to make the transition from only packing and exporting to growing. We’re still in the middle of a learning process. Turkey right now lacks friendly neighbouring countries.”
However, the future seems bright for Narpak. “I reckon we should be able to break even this year. We’ll make a profit in the years after this one,” says Deniz. “Our forecasts are good. We’re going to produce a total of 10,000 tons of fruit. Our apricots are going to be of an amazing quality with good colouring. In the future we would like to expand our orchards and start out with new varieties.”
Narpak mainly exports to retailers and wholesale markets in both Europe and the Middle East. Deniz says his company tries to be active in as many markets as possible, rather than focussing on one single country. “We try to spread out. It’s not our style to send over 50% of our produce to one market.”
Like other countries, the Turkish export has been hit by the Russian ban. Many competitors are searching for new clients and markets to offload their produce. However, Deniz isn’t concerned with the competition. “It all depends on the products. I know that right now, there is a shortage on apricots in parts of Europe like Italy, but also in Middle-Eastern countries like Jordan. When growing our fruit, we mainly focus on quality and fruit with big sizes. We also have access to less known markets like Romania and retailers in Southern Europe.”
For more information:
Deniz Deletioglu
Narpak
Tel: 0090-324-454-1023
Email: denizdeletioglu@narpak.com.tr
www.narpak.com.tr