SEBILE AYAR OZTURK, CHIEF OF MARKETING DEPARTMENT, SOYYIGIT GROUP:
“Sial Paris is one of the world’s largest international food and beverage trade exhibition and it gives the companies the opportunity to have a role in global food marketplace. The four major goals of our presence at the Sial Exhibition was to expand acknowled gement of our brand Kent Boringer, to decipher consumer trends and innovations in the food markets worldwide, to present our new launched praducts and to reach a wider customer portfolio. We have achieved our goals and started to get the feedback from our present and potential customers and consumers. Once more, we are concerned that the exhibition is not only a trade fair but a market that highlights the leading market trends and major innovations. We got new ideas for our new product projects. We wish to contribute a small share in positioning Turkey among the best food markets worldwide. So, in 2013 we are going to invest in increasing our production capacity and enhance our marketing activities in order to increase our export volume. We believe that we can not success our aim by only increasing our export volume; we also target to increase awareness of our own brand and prestige of “Made in Turkey” perception.
Turkish food sector is developing every year and food companies are very open-minded to innovations and new investments. Great importance must be given to R&D and marketing activities in the sector. To use R&D and marketing infrastructure with the aim of increasing the competitiveness of the companies, it is necessary to increase university-industry cooperation in the sector. We believe 2013 will be a successful and prestigious year for food industry worldwide and Turkey as well.
EMRE YAVUZKAL, SALES MANAGER, GOKTUG:
“In general we can say that we were satisfıed with the visitors group that we received during the fair. Visitors mostly came from Europe, Middle East and Africa. These are the regions that we mainly targeted to increase our sales. We realized that most of the visitors were genuinely interested in our praducts and company and it was so important for us. We hope that we will have the opportunity to generate an important trade volume from SIAL 2012. I would like to mention mainly about the confectionery business. In Turkey the estimated confectionery industry reached 3.1 billion usd. Most of the turnover is realized especially during the I religious holidays. Besides the religious holidays especially young people and children consume an important volume of biscuit, chocolate and candy. I foresee that this consumption trend will continue and the confectionery business in Turkey will grow araund 9-10% in 2013. As far as the world confectionery industry is concerned we estimate that there will be an approximate 10% growth in global scale. We expect to see some new innovative praducts in world markets and an increase in small size packages due to strong price competition between the producers. Of course the prices of commodities in world markets are really important for this industry such as cocoa, sugar and wheat. Any price increase regarding these ingredients will definitely reduce the global sales in confectionery business.”
HANDE BUYUKLIMANLI, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT COMMUNICATION LEADER, ASYA FRUIT JUICE:
At SIAL, we mainly focused on launching a new product: ‘fruit preparation’. With different flavors such as raspberry, strawberry, peach, apricots and mixed berries we aim to reach dairy and bakery sectors. This new product got a lot of attention at the fair in addition to our fruit juice concentrates, purees, sauces and tailored made products. Our stand was very lively and busy with international visitors. 36 different national visitors stop by our stand to leam more about our products. SIAL is a real asset for us to maintain our existing customer relations as well as meeting potential ones. We had a very successful fair in general.
Sustainability and traceability are very important issues for global food sector. The sustainable growth through the more effıcient use of natural resources will continue to be important for food manufacturing companies in 2013.’
MURAT GUR, EXPORT AREA MANAGER, KURU KAHVECI MEHMET EFENDI MAHDUMLARI:
Sial 2012 was good for our company. We had a chance to deal with existing customers and we had new contacts during the exhibition. However, compare to previous exhibitions. Sial did not get enough visitors and or participants due to the Islamic Eid-al Adha. Organizers had to pay attention to this important detail. Anyway, I may say that it was fruitful for us. 2013 will be more difficult for the world food industry and also of Turkey. Due to climate change, agricultural production is affected negatively. As a result, market prices increase progressively. 2013 and following years will be more difficult for all of us if we don’t develop sustainable solutions for negative effects of global warming on agricultural production.
MEHMET FADILLIOGLU, SADE ORGANIC PRODUCTS:
“SIAL Paris was a fantastic food show this year. There were many innovative food products from different countries. It was a good opportunity to reveal our organic products and examine the others. We have a chance to meet new and existing customers which are mostly Europeans but also others. As SADE ORGANIC introduced our company and our capabilities also discuss about their organic needs. They were very interested in about our product line because we have very large range of products such as organic dried fruits and nuts, organic tomato products, organic pastas, organic olives and olive oil, organic jams, organic spices and herbs, organic honey and molasses. It was a good time to announce our new ISO certificate.
Basically it was a plentiful organization but Turkish Pavilion needed more traffic and attractions.
We believe that organic food sector would be much gripping in Turkey and Europe at 2013. Turkish consumers are more aware of organic foods nowadays. They are willing to use organic food firstly for their babies and for themselves, too. Constantly we are trying to extend our product line to meet our consumers demand for years but comparing to Europe we have a long way to go. But for some organic products we are very strong and advantages. We will concentrate on those products.
For the future, we are aiming to penetrate European national chains with our label and also PL for our customers. To serve them better looking for distributor who can give good services to these points.
NURSAH PINARCI, FOREIGN TRADE MANAGER, BASHAN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS:
It was a quiet exhibition or maybe that’s what I felt due to the poor visitor flood to our stand. I assume that this poor attendance was due to financial problems in some European countries, conflict and unrest in Middle East countries and Hajj season for Muslims. However, over all it is a good opportunity to be in fairs so we can understand the real market movement in terms of supply and demand. I expect that 2013 would be better than 2012 especially for the grain and pulses sectors as the demand from our clients is growing signifıcantly and rapidly. Moreover, we are expecting big demand after the unrest fınish in the middle east countries . Pulses are important crops due to its high protein ingredients there fore the consumption of pulses gradually increasing every year worldwide. In terms of production, we are experiencing shortage of supply from time to time from particular areas due to climate changes, however, this climate changes push us to search other areas where some countries start to produce new products for pulses in some regions for the first time. Therefore, on the one hand this climate change has positive impact for some others, on the other hand it causes negative effects for some others but there is always endless demand and supply. I hope that my expectations come true and 2013 be better than 2012 for our sector.’
