Produced in Bursa and sent to the Netherlands: 1,500 tons will be exported
Tomato paste, produced throughout the season at İnegöl's women-powered tomato paste production facilities, will be shipped throughout Türkiye. The pepper paste will be exported to the Netherlands. Kulaca Agricultural Development Cooperative President Ahmet Uğur stated that their export target for this year is 1,500 tons.
Kulaca Agricultural Development Cooperative President Ahmet Uğur said, "We're growing like a snow ball every year. Despite the crisis in our country, we've increased our exports by 10 to 15 percent. We also produce and sell our tomato and pepper paste in the domestic market. Our cooperative has no economic or financial difficulties. We're increasing our exports from 1,200 tons last year to 1,500 tons this year."
"There's a new development; a company we've been working with in the Netherlands has changed ownership. They're targeting 1,500 tons and 3,000 tons in the coming years. We need to make the investment in return. This amounts to 60 million Turkish Lira. Meanwhile, because we bring in this foreign currency without importing, agricultural income in our country is significantly different, and we don't have any foreign currency going abroad," he said. Highlighting female employment, Uğur said, "Our employment is very important. We currently have 120 women working. We also have 10-15 women working in tomato paste production. Most of our women workers are insured. One of our social activities is providing 10-15 days of work for university students, high school seniors, and those over 16. We do this to help them contribute to future projects. We also have one or two students doing internships with us, and they learn from this experience and leave."
Uğur, stating that the cooperative started its operations in 1976, said, "We have been producing for about 50 years. Of course, despite some minor setbacks in the past years, we have managed to overcome our economy in recent years. We do not use credit and we produce the best tomato paste in Türkiye. We have made great progress. Our friends who went to Italy from the Provincial Directorate saw three cooperatives on the screen. One is Torku, a state-supported cooperative in Konya. Another is Teresüt in Izmir, and it had the metropolitan municipality behind it. But we had no one. One of the three cooperatives is Kulaca. Hopefully, we will continue. Those who want to establish a cooperative operation come to us and we support them. We have chosen two sister cooperatives. We support them as well. We have been exporting for about 25-27 years. As we said, we are currently aiming for 1,500 tons of exports. They choose us because the products are very good. There are companies that want to produce the same product made in the Netherlands in Türkiye, and we support them. We supply the semi-finished product and send it to them. "We sell pepper paste. We sell around 500 tons of that," he said.
ntv
