Turkish Olive Oil Giant Opening New Facility in Germany

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 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.

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.”

• Daily Sabah


• Anadolu News Agency