A Turkish fresh produce exporter has taken the leap and will have its first apple season with full capacity this year. After contemplating on whether to make the required investments, the company decided to build an additional packhouse and get the proper machinery in place. They now export to countries in Asia, Africa and Europe.
Ani Tarim is a Turkish fresh produce exporter, that did not have a lot of experience with apples until very recently: “Our company is based on Boğazova Valley of Eğirdir District in Isparta - the most productive apple cultivation area in Turkey and well-known for its Red Delicious variety, and we mostly deal with cherry, pomegranate, black fig, table grape and quince exports,” says Mehmet Çakmak, sales and marketing manager for Turkish fresh produce exporter Ani Tarim. “Although we live in apple paradise so to speak, we were not doing apple exports until 2020. Isparta, with its different cultivation areas, produced about 1,130,000 tons of apple in 2021.”
“On the other hand, we noticed that local apple growers, who mostly run their business through small-scale farming, have often been facing marketing challenges, despite the increasing export share of Turkish apples across world markets in the recent years. Besides, many clients of ours to whom we supply other fruits, were asking for apples too. Considering these factors, we have been discussing to start apple exports and contribute to the local economy more, as well as to the national economy. Finally, our company decided to make the investments needed for apple exports and built a packhouse adjacent to our main complex in Eğirdir to run the business conveniently in this sense.”
Given this demand for apples from the Turkish exporter, the company also invested in the proper machinery, Çakmak states. “With five new additional cold rooms, our packhouse is equipped with a high-tech sorting and grading machine made by Turkish company Tarend Tarım Endüstri Makinaları and powered by Dutch company Ellips B.V.. This machine started to operate in early November, and today we are able to sort and pack about 100 tons of apples per day, providing high color and size accuracy, defect detention and process efficiency. As this is our first season with full-capacity in apple exports, we will run the season between August and late-April. We pack Red Delicious, Golden Delicious Gala, Granny Smith and Rosy Glow varieties for our clients in different packaging. In addition to our own crop, we procured apples from local growers, up to 7500 tons. India, Malaysia, Libya and Russia are the markets we mostly work with.”
Ani Tarim is also currently in the midst of the pomegranate season, which is also an important product for the company, Çakmak explains: “In addition to our apple operations, we regularly run our pomegranate exports since October. Ani Tarim has also done a small investment in the pomegranate unit, by implementing a new pre-sorting and grading machine, which eases to store the fruits right after harvest and prepare the orders smoothly according to weight specifications. This machine is only used for about three weeks during the season, but especially helps us with stock management and order planning later on.”
“We procured 4200 tons of the Hejaz variety pomegranate by the contracted-local growers from the Denizli and Antalya regions this season, and offer all calibers, 5-6-7-8-9-10 and 12, in carton, wooden or plastic packaging to our clients. Although there was about a 25-30% decrease on total crop volume due to unfavorable weather conditions in production areas across Turkey, we’ve seen consistent demand from the European markets since the start of the season. Especially the German, Swiss and UK markets are quite demanding this season.”
“Hejaz is the most produced and consumed pomegranate variety in Turkey. It’s usually available from October to March, which is a great advantage for Turkish exporters against other producing countries, who mostly run out of their stocks by that time already. Turkey had produced 600,021 tons of pomegranate and exported 192,006 tons of this volume with a value of 126,054 USD revenue in 2020. While total production of 2019 season was 559,171 tons, only 155,714 tons of this volume was exported, earning 97.4 million USD in revenue. Turkey keeps its global ranking as one of the largest pomegranate producers and exporters along with the US, India, Iran and China.” Çakmak concludes.
