Italian Ferrero, one of the world's largest hazelnut buyers with the Nutella brand, gave important messages to reporters with regard to increasing their investments in Turkey. Ferrero Hazelnut Company Turkey General Manager Stefano Gagliasso said the company management sees Nutella as Turkey's product, adding that the company uses Turkish hazelnuts in their Ferrero Roche and Nutella brands.Turkish hazelnuts are used in more than 50 percent of these two products in total across the company's entire global operations, he said and continued, "We have seven production facilities in Turkey. We export to 100 countries from our factory in Manisa. In a sense, we take the Turkish hazelnut in our DNA to 100 countries and serve as its voluntary envoy. We are very pleased to be in Turkey."
"Behind our global our success lays the endeavor of our employees in Turkey," Gagliasso said.
He informed the reporters that with "Ferrero Farming Values" project developed in Turkey, the firm has trained many hazelnut producers. The project, which has been carried out for the last five years as the biggest user of Turkish hazelnuts, is run with domestic resources and a vision of 15 years.
"It basically aims to enhance the quality and productivity of hazelnuts produced by explaining to our farmers the practices of good agriculture and mechanization," Gagliasso said.
Recalling that they have reached 35,000 farmers in the last five years and that they have 110 workers on the field, including agricultural engineers and social experts, he noted that while their social workers reach out to women and tell good social practices for seasonal workers, their agricultural engineers go to the hazelnut fields personally to explain the productive agricultural practice.
"Since the beginning of 2017 alone, our teams on the field have visited more than 40,000 hazelnut gardens. In the Black Sea Region, we also created 55 model gardens. We receive intense interest from our farmers in the regions where the model gardens are located," he added.
Gagliasso said that the company has seen an increase of 30 percent in the productivity of farmers and 66 percent rise in their profitability.
"Most importantly, the hazelnut crop emerged at a very high quality. As Ferrero, we expect to reach 50,000 more farmers in the next five years with this perspective."Ferrero Turkey General Manager Azmi Gümüşlüoğlu also said the company has seven factories in Turkey, including six hazelnut processing plants in addition to their Manisa factory.
Noting that they produce semi-finished products with added value by processing hazelnuts in these factories, Gümüşlüoğlu stated they have grown the business volume has grown by 4.5 times in Turkey in the last 10 years and the number of employees rose to 1,650 from only 24 in this period.
He said that Ferrero will invest TL 60 million ($14 billion) annually in Turkey, adding that the company reached a turnover of $1 billion in 2017. According to the information provided by Ferrero Turkey general manager, the firm also achieved $700 million in exports, supported by the hazelnut processing center.