“Turkish agri business is a safe place to invest in”

The Turkish horticultural industry has known its challenges but is currently developing rapidly. It’s not just existing companies upgrading and expanding their facilities, it’s also new businesses entering the market. One of them is the company Somer Sondaj. Together with Richel Group they will build a new greenhouse in Eskisehir, Turkey. This year the first 3 hectares of a project of 5 ha are being realised.

“Our company is involved in drilling. We wanted to expand our business and the agricultural sector was always something in our minds. For us, it was logical to go this way. The way we see it, agri business is a safe place to invest in and a perfect way to grow our company,” Kadir Bilgic, general manager of Somer Sondaj, explains.

A huge step
There is more going on in Turkey and after a few turbulent years, again more new players are looking into the high-tech greenhouse market. “In the last 15 years the industry did make a huge step by improving their technology and lots of investors started to build high tech greenhouses. In Turkey we don’t get any subsidy from the government. Instead we don’t pay taxes in the first 5 years of the project.”             

The construction of the new greenhouse… preparing or levelling the land to build the new greenhouse

Winter and summer production
In the greenhouse tomatoes will be cultivated. “In the summer, the production demand is high enough for the local market. The price is also good enough for us. With our winter production we focus on export, mainly on the European and Russian market. We will be growing beef and cherry tomatoes to answer their demand.”

Working with Richel Group
As Somer Sondaj is new in the greenhouse business, it’s also their first collaboration with Richel Group. “We wanted to have the most efficient system and be the most efficient growers of course,” they laugh. “We heard about Richel Group 5 years ago when we started to think about this business. After a few conversations we had a very good feeling about them. The company is very well known for their high quality and we also knew that they did different successful project in Turkey. It was without any hesitation that we finally choose Richel to make the first phase of our complex.”

Technical features
“For the structure we choose the 12.80 span from Richel Group with 6m high. We believe that the higher the greenhouse, the better we can control the climate inside and Richel offered us exactly what we wanted. Our greenhouse will be covered by polycarbonate on the side and a plastic film on the roof,” they show. “The engineers of Richel helped us with the design of the greenhouse and also with the design of equipment specially for the heating system. We’ll use water warmed by a geothermal source.”

The first 3-hectares will be ready this summer, but the team is already thinking about expanding to 5 hectare. “All facilities are ready for it. But we see bigger, we have lots of plan ”

To be continued…