Salih Ertürk, General Manager of Balarısı, outlines the sweetest business in detail.
He underlines, “For thousands of years, bees and nature have been working in harmony with the natural rhythm of the seasons to bring you their royal gift.” An interview with Ertürk follows:
How was 2014 according to your business side?
First I would like to say thanks for giving me a chance to have this interview .Thankfully 2014was good and successful year for us. We achieved a lot of what we have planned to do. We achieved a very good ratio of domestic and international market sales. We develop a new design for the bottles of honey with a beautiful and stylish appearance; we have signed several export deals to some countries in the world. Overall it was a good year in all sides.
What are your plans and targets for 2015? Are there any new investment plans for this year?
In fact there are always new plans for each year. This what we do at the end of each year the Board of Directors meet to Evaluate what has been accomplished this year and what are the new plans for next year in line with the overall strategy of our company. In 2015 we have already developed our factory by latest technology in honey sector. We are planning to improve our factory ability by getting a new packaging lines and produce new products such as picnic types, also improve the capacity of our employee because we believe the best investment is in develop human ability, and also keep going on same our strategy “ our products should be available everywhere in the world and affordable to all consumer’’.
Nowadays, there are lots of honeys advertising show programs on TV trying to convince people, what do you think about them?
We are in the age of media, television, Internet and social media networks, so I think we should communicate by language of these times. It necessary to any company promote their products, but it more necessary to take care the quality of their products more than over excessive interest in the ads, this doesn’t mean I’m against the advertising, absolutely not. We have our advertise shows on some TV Channels and we are also planning to have more in future. In this huge number of ads that we are shown on TV, the consumer will be the last judgment about quality of this product, whatever the announcement remarkable and bright if the product bad it is not going to continuation in the market “Fake honey cannot deceive our health”. Imitation is the easiest in the world, but the most difficult Honey assayed product.
Could you give information about your product qualities and nutritional values?
We carefully selected the latest modern and high technology machinery and equipment’s at our plants to get best quality natural production results at the end for human consumption and its requests. Honeys obtained from wild flowers of eastern and southeastern regions are packaged in hygienic environment without human touch right after their conformity with the standardization of Turkish Food Codex notification on honey – determined in productions are analyzing at our own high qualified modern laboratories Also at our factory we can filling, storing, labeling and packaging of honeys with the last technological methods used in hygienic conditions.
The manufacturer working under the supervision of the Ministry of Agriculture, who are producing honey in real terms, with label and known brands have to be preferred.Honey is extracted with high densities from its special plateaus in Eastern Anatolia, which allows us to provide our products with principle priority to health and naturalness by giving importance to the premium quality of our goods. Our expert teams are travelling all over Turkey and buying natural honeys from our beekeepers with which we have a regular production contract. All our suppliers are supervised by us during year. We proudly announce that all our honey is pure as the nature itself. All honey samples are tested and graded for clarity, type, flavor, moisture and color. The most advanced methods and the most exacting standards are used to assure that every grade of honey packed under Balarisi label it the finest available anywhere .There is three phases in production stage of real natural honey at our plant. First stage is collecting and buying the selected honey product and enter the quality control center before store it. When it is available and pre-quality control passed first stage is starting, we accepting the honey to use for Pre-heating (max 55 ‘C), Filtration and pasteurization than keeping in storage under all hygienic rules.
The second stage of our process is in packing material prepare and bottling of our honey, here we use last technologic equipment throughout. Hygiene controls are our major priority were our honey is concerned, and we believe it cannot be enforced too strictly. All of our staff is trained to at least intermediate levels in both food hygiene and food processing. It is worn at all times by all our staff in the bottling and packing lines. The third part is our last quality control process which takes place in our laboratory .When it is acceptable sending warehouse to store for shipment to the markets.
Please give me information about your exporting activities, Are there any plans to enter a new global markets?
Export has a high priority in the company’s activity. We have in foreign export department a high-skills staff working on implementation the export strategies and make good relationships and communicate with clients in several languages. We have already customers in several countries, including North America, Eastern Asia and Middle East, also we have good relations with the Gulf markets, and we will attend an exhibition in Dubai at 8th to 12th February 2015 (Gulf food 2015)
What would you like to say as the final remarks?
Finally, I would like to say, thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about our company activity in this interview. In our company we work together as one family to provide a high quality product suitable for domestic consumers and befitting the reputation of the Turkish product in global markets. We promise to provide always the best.
