Established in 1919 in Belgium Puratos has been serving the bakery and patisserie sector since 1987.
Bora Akin, Puratos Turkey marketing director says that the company produces incomes 60% from patisseries, 30% from bakery and 10% from chocolatier businesses. He furnished us about their Turkey operations:
How would you briefly describe Puratos? Since what time is Puratos in the Turkish market?
Puratos is a rooted company founded in 1919 in Belgium; provides qualified ingredients and solutions for bakers, confectioners and chocolatiers in more than 100 countries, 58 factories with over 5000 employees. Since 1987, Puratos has been rendering high-quality service to bakeries and patisseries throughout Turkey. Known for valuing human health, Puratos also offers its services for custom demands as well. With over 1 billion dollars annual turnover, Puratos is one of the exceptional companies that operate in the fields of chocolatier, patisserie and bakery all over the world. Top it all off, Puratos is the very first in Turkey by means of this qualification, which is a very significant privilege for us. Through the globe, we come second in bakery and patisserie markets and rank 6th in chocolate. We offer our services to companies in and patisserie and bakery sector in Europe, Middle East, Asia, the Americas and Africa. Our services are available for a wide range of customers, such as industrial brands – whose products are sold in supermarkets – corner bakery shops, patisseries and hotels. We split our services in 3 ways; industrial, supermarket and artisans. From a global aspect the leading sector in Puratos is bakery, whereas in Turkey, 60 percent of our revenue comes from patisserie, 30 percent from bakery and 10 percent from chocolate.
You take place in the Turkish market with various kinds of products. How does it affect your market share in Turkey?
Turkish bakery, patisserie and chocolate markets combined are worth 750 million Turkish liras. When we view consumptions per capita, Turkey still follows Europe from quite behind, excluding bakery. Especially in the following years, we assume we will reach the European standards in patisserie and chocolate consumption. In Turkey, the annual consumption of patisserie and chocolate per capita is 2 and 1.6 kilos respectively. These quantities are quite behind European consumption. As Puratos, we take all the aforementioned facts into consideration, keep pace with technology and make investments in order to upgrade our services. Besides, we think the trends should be set due to consumption patterns and local tastes. Therefore Puratos uses local consumer-friendly tastes and global application methods for production. It is possible to say that the frozen products will make a change of scene in the following years. Especially bakery sector will start to use frozen technology more and begin centralized production. Frozen or half-baked products will be in supermarket shelves and places under end-users’ reach. Last year in mid-June, Puratos has brought frozen bakery products into use of Turkish bakers.
What are the differences of pastry sector between Turkey and the global scene? What kind of improvements can be done to put it further?
When we take chocolate for instance, we can say that the consumption in Europe is quite higher than Turkey. And in pastry we observe that the big portioned-celebration cakes are more popular in Turkey whereas in Europe smaller portions are preferred. In order to catch better standards in the sector the most significant point is to chase the trends and keep up with technological developments, and Puratos is doing so. We channel 2.7 percent of our acquisitions to research and development. We work with over 750 technical specialist in 40 innovation centers located in various places around the globe. Keeping up with technologic developments is essential for us. We make investments according to technological improvements, so that we can offer better services to our clients. Besides, we think the trends should be set due to consumption patterns and local tastes. Therefore Puratos uses local consumer-friendly and global application methods for production. In 2012 we brought up 10 most preferred types of bread to our customers? Under the concept of “Breads of the World’. All kinds of these breads can be baked by ready mixes of Puratos. These 10 types of breads include Bolla Gallega of Spain, Craquelin of Belgium, Ciabatta, Foccacia and Pugliese of Italy, Baguette and Croissant of France, Bagel of the States (USA?), Cozonac of Romania and Danish from Denmark. We also lowered the fat rate in poğaça for 33 per cent in order to implement lower expenditures and named it Puraslim. We launched a new ready-touse product that also matches with new bread and bakery notices. Lastly we presented Tegral Patacrout and Topfil Raspberry. Tegral Patacrout is ready to use mix for groundbreaking cheesecake base and Topfil Raspberry is a complementary filling that consists of fruits 60 percent.
To which countries and regions do you export your products?
Puratos globally operates in the local market of 66 countries and exports to more than 100 countries. Turkey Office of Puratos also exports too many countries. We export all the products for patisserie, bakery and chocolate. The most exported products happen to be patisserie fillings, glaze, sponge cakes and powder cake mixes. Can you briefly inform us about your working capacity and facilities? Apart from powder production for patisserie and bakery, we have also wet production for patisserie glaze and fillings. All of our productions are based on automation and untouched by human hands. Each of our products get approval from the department of quality control before meeting our customers. Production personnel are put through trainings about hygiene, quality and job safety.
Lastly, what would you like to say extra?
We aim to reach 200 million Turkish Liras in 2018. For Turkey, the plan is to focus on chocolatier chocolate investments. We operate in 5000 points regularly and aim to raise this quantity to 10 thousand in 3 years, expanding to the whole country. As Puratos, we non-stop continue our R&D studies to come up with better solutions. Nutrition is a big subject on Puratos’ agenda. Since it is possible to decrease the rates of egg, salt and fat rates in products without taking the taste away, we invest in studies to do so.
