For 25 years now, Selin Frucht Ltd has been dedicated to the procurement and distribution of high-quality fruit and vegetables, to a large extent from its own production in Turkey. The internationally active company with locations in Herne and Antalya focuses on a wide range of products, whereby especially the fruit vegetables, above all the tomatoes of the own brand Baykal, have become indispensable in the German as well as in the European specialized trade.
The Selin Frucht team with managing director Ömer Baykal (m) and authorized signatory Ufuk Tirit (r)
At the moment, the season is about to change, says Baykal, in which the Turkish round and vine tomatoes from their own cultivation are increasingly replaced by goods from Dutch as well as Belgian greenhouses. "In winter, from November/December to late March/early April, we source most of our tomatoes from Turkey. In the remaining months of the year, we provide mainly goods from neighboring countries. In week 13-14 we will probably get the last Turkish tomatoes of this year's season. Prices are very volatile at the moment, although we have the advantage of being able to purchase goods directly, which is why we can still control price developments to a certain extent."
The Turkish goods of the proprietary Baykal label are processed and packaged directly at the source. Prices are set as soon as the truck leaves Turkey.
In addition to seasonal items, there are also year-round items, Baykal said. "We can supply all types of peppers, as well as eggplant and zucchini, twelve months a year without interruption from our own fields." The tightened goods control and customs clearance at the Turkish-Bulgarian border is increasingly causing him problems. "The border checks and everything around can take up to two or three days. As a result, we now prefer to work with advance orders and minimum order acceptance, so that we can better plan the direct distribution of our Turkish goods. In turn, this improved transport process will benefit the freshness of our goods."
Turkish chili peppers
On the German domestic market, the company works with regular buyers at the urban wholesale markets. Baykal: "We are already represented in numerous major cities such as Frankfurt, Mannheim, Hanover, Nuremberg and Cologne. You can just tell that our proprietary Baykal brand has a high recognition value. The goal now is to gain a foothold in the other cities - Munich and Berlin, for example - and find reliable partners."
Left: Eggplants from the Greek island of Crete. Right: White cabbage from Turkey.
The company also operates a pick-up market at its headquarters in Herne, for commercial customers in the Rhine-Ruhr region. The company would also like to expand this division in the future. "We have been able to develop into a valued point of contact for weekly market traders, ethnic supermarkets and restaurateurs throughout the Ruhr region, and we have also been able to acquire new customers in recent years. This is a sign that there is still further growth potential in the surrounding areas."
For more information:
Ömer Baykal
Selin Import-Export GmbH
Bahnhofstraße 280
44629 Herne
Tel.: 0049 176 40759324
selinimport@web.de
selin-import-export.com/