Konya Şeker San. ve Tic. A.Ş.

Konya Seker
“Producing Power of Turkey”

Konya Seker is the story of a farmer’s cooperative participation’s transformation into an agricultural industrial giant in Turkey.

Konya Seker Factory began production in 1954 and large shareholder of the company is Konya Beet Planters Cooperative, which has 46 thousand partners.

Konya Seker, whose shareholders are pankobirlik and 16 beet cooperatives within it, is a joint venture of approximately 900 thousand beet producers in our country as of its partnership structure. Founded as a cooperative venture and contribution was made to the founding capital at a very low amount (1/10) to express the support of the law, Konya Seker was run by the public for 40 years. Although Konya Seker did not achieve the desired growth like the other factories during Turkiye Seker Fabrikalari A.S. management, it increased its capacity gradually. Its sugar beet processing capacity, which was 1800 tons per day during the foundation years, was increased to 2 thousand 700 tons in 1996 and 6 thousand tons in 1978 and feed factory of Pancar Yem sanayi ve Ticaret A.S., founded in partnership with Konya Beet Planters Cooperative, was put into operation in 1987. Konya Milk Factory was integrated into the company with joint venture of Konya Seker and Konya Beet Planters Cooperative during the privatization process of SEK (Milk Industry Institution) in 1993.

Sugar Factory was given back to the beet planters, who are its real owners, when privatizations were intensively on the agenda, at the beginning of the 1990s. Management was transferred completely to cooperatives after the transferring process, which was implemented gradually.

Konya seker, which had been producing only crystal sugar until the 2000s, created investment planning and began to expand its fields of activity by determining a new strategy with its changing management philosophy in 1999. The new strategy, which started off by the fact that “the only agricultural production item of its producing partner should not be beet,” was determined as “ensuring an industrial structuring, which will process every product, which is or can be produced, will find solutions for problems, experienced during this process and strengthen the competitive structure of the agricultural sector.” Results of the management philosophy, which encompasses such elements as growth, based on owner’s equity, making use of experiences of successful institutions in the world, efficiency and competition based structuring and making use of the professional accumulation, marketing has reached, were received in a short time. Konya Seker, which was a company with a negative balance in 1999, made investments to increase operation efficiency of the factory, which was founded in 1954, by renewing its technology and going into automation in production.

While the daily beet production of the factory increased with this investment, amount of sugar, remaining inmolasses was decreased and fuel and labor costs were decreased. On the other hand, emphasis was laid on professional formation by increasing quality of personnel and ratio of qualified workers, which are Vocational Schools of Higher Education and Vocational High Schools was increased to 92 per cent in the employee profile as a result of this employment policy, which was implemented resolutely.

Results of this investment and precautions alone allowed the company to save 283 million dollars between 2000 and 2015.

Establishing a total of 41 production plants, some of which are on a world scale, with these investments by using its own resources efficiently, has become the company, which has developed the sector range, in which it is active. In this framework, it increased its product item to a wide range from crystal sugar to sweet sherbet, medicine sugar to candy and chocolate, snacks to meat and dairy products, frozen products to sunflower oil, organic fertilizer to stockbreeding and bioethanol to power generation in the last 13 years. Offering its frozen products to the market with Torku Pratiko brand, brings its snack, meat and dairy products with the consumers under Torku roof brand.

Konya Seker moved into the new management model, which suits its new position and will strengthen control mechanisms in 2008 and collected group companies and participations under the roof of Anadolu Birlik Holding (ABH). Possibilities of administrative fragility and instability were eliminated by moving into Holding management structure by the decision of General Assembly and the creation of a professional management model and its being put into practice, which creates the greatest threat to cooperative companies

Konya Seker, which increased its market shares with its new management structuring, provides direct employment for more than 10.000 people today. It makes 40 thousand farmers engage in contractual agriculture on approximately 1 million decares of land. Carrying out approximately 22 per cent of total sugar beet production in Turkey, Konya Seker is also the market leader in the potato market. Having 56 per cent of installed capacity of fuel ethanol capacity in Turkey, the first and the only liquid sugar facility in Turkey and Steam Pulp Drying Facility, whose peer in the world exists only in the USA, Konya Seker carries out its industrial activities in 11 campuses.

For further information: http://www.konyaseker.com.tr/en/icerik/detay/6460/konya-seker