The Turkish apple season is set to start in less than a month. Turkey’s apple cultivation has seen an explosive growth over the past five years and one Turkish fresh produce exporter decided to get into apple export. After two years of shipments they now feel they have the knowledge and have made the investments to properly compete with quality apples in the market.
According to Aksun marketing manager Akin Soyleyen, the results of the Turkish apple cultivation pushed the company into trying it out for themselves: “The demand and figures of local production encouraged us to invest in apples two years ago. The export figures have shown us a 300% increase from 2016 to 2020 in terms of export volume for apple from Turkey. In 2016 Turkey exported 38,000 tons, in 2020 that number was 110,000 tons. This is way above the market average in terms of growth and we wanted to be a part of this huge market.”
After deciding that Aksun was going to go for apple export, it meant that the exporter had to invest in their packhouse as well, Soyleyen explains. “Our first trials have been successful and the feedback we received provided us with great knowledge as to how we can improve in terms of packing and varieties. In the light of that; we have invested in 14 new MA cold rooms in our Mersin packhouse, to be able to provide high quality apples year around. With this investment, we will now be able to offer high quality citrus, stone fruits, pomegranates and now apples to our customers from our Mersin packhouse.”
The new season is less than a month away, Soyleyen states. The investments made to the packhouse should mean they can keep supplying apples until the month of June: “We plan to start the season on 10th of August with Gala varieties and will continue with Red Delicious and Granny Smith in September and October. While these are the harvesting periods, with the help of our new facility we will be able to keep the apples in good condition until June. The weather has been good and we haven’t seen any damage this season. We’re not expecting anything out of the ordinary from now onwards.”
Trying to get into a new product always brings uncertainty, but the fact the pandemic also took a grip on the world made things even more challenges, Soyleyen explains. “Apart from the challenge of learning and trying a new product, the major challenge was the uncertainty surrounding every market in the world due to the pandemic. Nowadays investing in something new is scary, since you never know where the demand will shift and what the price trends will be for the foreseeable future. So, it wasn’t an easy decision to make.”
“The direction of our company has never been to be the biggest of all. We’re certainly not looking for very large volumes; we never have been. For this investment we aren’t shifting from that mentality. The demand is certainly there; we can see it from the figures of import and export throughout the past ten years. It’s really encouraging, but still we can’t give up our promise of quality for the sake of sheer volume. We’ll focus on our current customer base and try to go from there. We had good feedback for the past two years, so now is the time to expand and polish what we achieved so far,” Soyleyen concludes.
For more information:
Akin Soyleyen
Aksun
Tel: +90 324 234 41 90
Mobile: +90 532 590 75 92
Email: akin@aksun.com.tr
www.aksun.com.tr/en/