A professional in white meat, egg, olive oil and related products Keskinoglu is a company who makes every effort to offer the healthiest and most consistent product offerings to its customers.
It is also a successful company. We conducted an exclusive interview with Keskin Keskinoglu, Member of the Board and Chairman of Marketing Group. Full text of the interview follows:
Could you brief us about your company with important milestones?
Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, our company has always brought firsts and novelties to the market. Along with these, we are the company which brought many technologies to Turkey. We used the air cooling system, which whole Europe uses, in chick meat for the first time. With this system, the shelf life of the chicks extended to 11 days. Besides, the water ratio in the cooled chicks was reduced to zero and we offered water-free chicks to our customers. Currently, we made an investment worth 20 million TL at the end of 2012 in the latest technology used in the world in order to preserve the nutrition value of our frozen products and offer our customers healthier products and we started to use continuous quick freezing system. The products, which used to be quick frozen in 12 hours, are now quick frozen in 6 hours. Thus, the product’s nutritional value is preserved at a higher degree as well as its shelf life becomes longer. As a result, during the last 10 years our company achieved a growth rate of over 1000 percent.
At the end of 70’s, many companies were non-existent in poultry sector. During those days our chicken capacity had reached 70 thousand. First we founded a feed factory. In 1980’s, we got the Turkey distributorship of German breeder chicken company, Lohman. We started to satisfy 50 percent of Turkey’s breeder chicken
need along with our need with the help of this distributorship; this was an important step which has an important role in our growth. In 1994, we decided to enter viol business. Our founding a viol factory increased our endorsement. Right now we are the biggest viol manufacturer in Turkey. We started to slaughter 15
thousand chickens by entering the broiler business and founding a broiler slaughterhouse. We increased number of slaughters, which used to be 15 thousand in 1998, to daily 50 thousand in 1999.
These developments occurring in our facilities used to automatically increase the endorsement and number of employees. We increased our endorsement, which used to be 9 million TL in 1998, to 19 million TL in 1999. Later, in 2003, we went beyond the threshold of 100 million TL and made an endorsement worth 118 million TL. In 2005, we started manufacturing Ravika brand olive oil, soap and olive. In 2007, we took our place in health sector by starting to manufacture Sanikes brand paper based consumable materials. In 2008, we started to be the choice of Turkey’s leading food manufacturers with the technology we use in FEM Logistics, which we founded with an investment worth 15 million TL in total. In 2010, we entered a different sector with our first Tavvuk Restaurant, which we started in Manisa Akhisar with an investment worth 2,5 million TL. This year we went beyond the threshold of 500 million TL with an endorsement we made worth 588 million TL.
We realized many investments in 2012 when we made an endorsement worth 891 million TL. We launched continuous tunnel quick freezing facility, which reduces the quick freezing time by 60 percent, with a capacity of 13,5 tons and chicken meat cold storage depot with a capacity of 10 thousand tons with an investment worth 20 million TL. We used full automatic systems with the latest technology in pasteurized egg facility worth 10 million TL which we started manufacturing concurrently with this investment.
In addition, we increased our capacity by 30 percent with our new slaughterhouse which we started with an investment worth 18 million TL and increased our annually slaughter to 170 thousand tons during the past months.
What does your product range include? What would you say about your quality and capacity?
As Keskinoglu, currently we have 277 production facilities based on 1 million 800 thousand-m2 land. In our facilities we manufacture chick meat, further processed chick meat and deli products, egg, pastuerized egg, viol (eggcup), layer chicken, pullet, broiler chick, organic fertilizer, olive oil and paper based health consumption materials. With the technology we use in FEM Logistics, which we founded with TL 15 million TL investment in 2008, we started to be the choice of Turkey’s leading food manufacturers. We serve more than 150 companies with 450 vehicles found in our Fem Logistics fleet.
When you take a look at the big manufacturers in Turkish white meat sector, most of them have advance-fixing certificate which can export to EU. We, as Keskinoglu, are the first and only company which exports cooked chick meat products, which are ready made products to Singapore market which has extremely high criteria and only a few countries can export.
Firstly, livestock production is not a job that can be remotely controlled; people must take care of the business. It should be paid special attention to offer the highest quality and natural products to the customers by following the technologic advancements closely. In our sector, R&D, preserving the food security and establishing a connection of confidence are very important. We, as Keskinoglu, we have worked for these goals for 50 years; we have a consistent growth performance especially during the last 20 years. There is no end point in improving your company but I guess I can tell that we went beyond very important thresholds in 20 years.
What about your exports? How do you promote your products abroad? What would you say about your export figures, current markets and target markets?
As Keskinoglu, right now we have extensive exports of processed chick meat, egg and olive oil. We export to 75 countries which Azerbaijan, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Denmark, Guinea, Georgia, Hong Kong, Iraq, Israel, Sweden, Cyprus, Kuwait, Malaysia, Kosovo, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Greece and Yemen are among. Last year we made an export worth 88 million dollar. We are targeting to increase this number by 30 percent reaching 115 million dollar this year. Along with these, with our olive oil brand Ravika, I can say that we are covering 18 percent of packaged olive oil exports made from Turkey.
How do you act with regards to innovations, changes and developments? Do you have a product development service?
We, as Keskinoglu, are a company which reacts very fast in accordance with the changes and the improvements in the world. As for offering novelty to the market, we are far beyond our sector. It is always very important to offer variety and new tastes to customers. We have more than 150 products only in chick meat range. Compared to 10 years ago, the consumption habits have changed; especially the readymade products which are cooked chick meat are consumed more. The consumer demand food which can be offered at the table in a shorter period of time. For this reason, R&D is very important. I can say that we offer 5 new products every year on average to our customers.
Are there problems in your sector and do you have solution suggestions for them?
As for the level the chick meat and egg production reached during the last 25 years, the increase in consumption concurrently with the production quality make our sector look to future with confidence. Turkey is targeting to increase its chick meat production, which was 1 million 707 thousand tons in 2012, to nearly 3 million tons in 2023. The poultry meat consumption is expected to be 30 kg per person in the same date. Studies are still being conducted in order to raise the exports to 1 billion 250 million dolar in 2023. It is expected that the egg consumption per person will rise from 180 to 250 in 2023. Despite these developments and expectations in our sector, the rising production costs due to the high price of feed raw materials and low incentive fees are the primary obstacles in front of the sector. In case these obstacles are removed, I can say that Turkish chick meat companies can have the opportunity to compete with Brazil and the U.S.A. which have the biggest share in the market.
Do you have any plans or targets for the short term?
As a company, our goal is to make an endorsement worth 2 billion TL and raise the exports to 300 million dollar level in 2023, our republic’s 100th anniversary. In 2023, which will be our company’s 60th anniversary, I believe that we will be among the first 50 companies in ISO Report ranking.
