Turkish Olive Oil Giant Opening New Facility in Germany

In a move seen as an opportunity for the Turkish firm to circumvent the European Union’s import quota on Turkish olive oil, Marmarabirlik, is preparing to open storage and processing facilities in Cologne, Germany.

By Daniel Dawson
Jan. 3, 2018 09:02 UTC
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Turkey’s lead­ing olive oil pro­ducer, Marmarabirlik, is prepar­ing to open stor­age and pro­cess­ing facil­i­ties in Cologne, Germany.

The move is widely seen as an oppor­tu­nity for the Turkish firm to cir­cum­vent the European Union’s import quota on Turkish olive oil.

We expect that Marmarabirlik will become the export cham­pion of the olive olive oil sec­tor on behalf of our active 30,000 pro­duc­ers and eight coop­er­a­tives.- Hidamet Asa, chair­man of Marmarabirlik

We have been car­ry­ing out tran­sit trade since 2015 to over­come the EU’s export quota on Turkey’s olive oil,” Hidamet Asa, chair­man of Marmarabirlik, told a Turkish state run news agency. Our new stor­age facil­ity in Cologne will be an impor­tant logis­tic cen­ter for tran­sit trade. We will sell olive oil from Cologne to Europe via the Marmarabirlik brand.”

By bas­ing their EU dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­ter in Germany, Marmarabirlik can press olives into olive oil and more afford­ably re-export it to other EU mem­ber states.

Marmarabirlik would also be able to use the facil­ity for pro­cess­ing olive oil and re-export­ing it out­side of the EU with­out pay­ing any tar­iffs.

The inward pro­cess­ing regime’ allows EU oper­a­tors to process imported oil and re-export it out­side the EU with­out pay­ing duties on oil imported for pro­cess­ing,” Kinga Malinowska, a European Commission trade spokes­woman, said.

According to the International Olive Council, olive oil pro­duc­tion in Turkey increased 18 per­cent in the 2016/17 sea­son and is expected to fur­ther increase by 62 per­cent next year.


© Olive Oil Times | Data source: International Olive Council


Marmarabirlik, which is a coop­er­a­tive asso­ci­a­tion com­posed of pro­duc­ers and ven­dors, is the world’s largest table olive pro­ducer and has seen its income quadru­ple in the past seven years.

Asa said that the coop­er­a­tive had sold about 16,000 tons of prod­ucts in the first six months of the 2016/17 busi­ness year.

We expect that Marmarabirlik will become the export cham­pion of the olive and olive oil sec­tor on behalf of our active 30,000 pro­duc­ers and eight coop­er­a­tives,” Asa said. Our aim is to increase our pro­duc­tion and aug­ment our income by increas­ing our exports by $30 mil­lion in the com­ing years.”

The stor­age facil­ity is expected to cost €2 mil­lion with the German Development Agency pro­vid­ing grant funds to spread the cost.

A high-capac­ity stor­age facil­ity is planned to be built on 3,000 square meters of land which will be pro­vided on a very favor­able con­di­tions from the munic­i­pal­ity of Cologne,” Asa said. Thanks to the new invest­ment… Marmarabirlik’s for­eign sales will increase incre­men­tally.”

European coun­tries are just one of the mar­kets that the Turkish firm is tar­get­ing with its olive oil. Asa said that Marmarabirlik also aims to increase exports to other Middle Eastern and Asian coun­tries.

The avail­abil­ity and diver­sity of our prod­ucts in European mar­kets will increase the sales of Marmarabirlik abroad,” Asa said. We have set up the Middle East, Arabian Peninsula and Far East mar­kets as the tar­gets and started to work on these regions in order to increase our sales.”





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