“From the last quarter of 2020 to 2025, we, as the manufacturers of the sector, will become much better and advantageous. According to 2019 data, the export of the entire bakery machinery sector in our country is around 530 million dollars. If the global size of our industry is estimated to reach 20 billion dollars by 2025 according to research, we need to work harder and increase our market share in the global market.”

Bread, the the jewel in the crown for the tables, reaches the table as a result of the works of the bakery industry and the bread artisans. There is a huge sector behind the bread, which is the common national food of the world and has thousands of varieties. The size of the global bakery market, which is approaching 500 billion dollars today, prompts many companies in the sector to to conduct constant innovation. One of these is Inoven Fırın Makinaları, which focuses on R&D works and wants to have a voice in the sector.

Hayri Oğuş, Foreign Trade Director at Inoven Fırın Makinaları which is operating with the motto of Innovative Bakery Technologies, expressed the company's goals in the interview he gave to BBM Magazine. Hayri Oğuş expressed that, as Inova, they are one of the leading companies of the bakery machinery industry in Turkey. "We attach importance to R&D activities. We aim to be among the global brands by 2030. This is because unfortunately we do not have a global brand that has opened up to the world in the Turkish bakery machinery sector today. We will achieve this,” he said.

The responses of Hayri Oğuş, Foreign Trade Director at Inoven Fırın Makinaları, to our questions are as follows:

Hello Mr. Oğuş, as a company manager serving the bakery products sector, can you evaluate us the recent developments in this sector? The size of the global bakery market reached $478.4 billion, according to 2019 data. According to research, the industry is expected to grow at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 2.6% by 2025. Currently, as the bakery production and consumption market, Europe and the Americas are coming to the fore. However, the Asia Pacific region (countries such as China, India, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand) is predicted to catch the highest growth trend between the years 2020 and 2025.

Where are you, as the machinery companies producing technology for such a big sector, in business? Of course, parallel to this huge sector, the industrial or commercial bakery equipment sector, which is used in cooking bakery products using modern technology, is developing at a dizzying pace. When we look at 2019 data, this sector size is around 12.5 billion dollars worldwide. This industry is expected to grow by 6.1% annually between 2020 and 2025 in the next 5 years and reach a size of $20 billion.

Could you give information about the works and targets of Inoven Bakery Machines which is active in the baking industry growing at an unprecedented pace? We, as Inova, are one of the leading companies in Turkey known for its high quality and innovative products in the bakery machinery industry. Our motto is Innovative Bakery Technologies. We have a young and dynamic crew. I believe that we have covered quite a distance in this adventure that we started 12 years ago, and of course I have to say that we still have a long way to go. We are planning to continue our R&D investments by 2025 and we want to be among the global brands in 2030. This is because we do not have a global brand that has opened up to the world in the Turkish bakery machinery sector today. But we hope to fill this gap within the timeframe we target and form a global Turkish brand. We are conducting our works and plans in order to reach this goal. Hopefully, we will see Inoven among the global brands in 2030.

Can you share your thoughts about the advantages of the players in the global market against Turkish companies and the position of the Turkish producers in the world market? When we look at the global market, apart from local-based producers, global player countries that are producers in the sector come to the fore. At first, manufacturer brands in Germany, Italy, China and the USA dominate 50% of the global market. In 20 percent of it, countries like Turkey, Spain, as France come to the fore. The remaining 30% is constituted by local producers. When we look at the advantages of the top 4 countries as infrastructure, we have seen that they can launch competitive and more innovative products as they can produce intermediate products and raw materials, and they can easily enter many markets due to being a country-based brand. I think if we solve the intermediate product issue within the country in a quality manner and we can do qualified engineering studies, we will be able to increase our market share.

Doesn't Turkey's geographical location provide you with an advantage? Due to the geographical location of our country, we have the advantage of transportation and shipment for the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Russia and Central Asia region, which are close markets, and we can produce customer-specific products thanks to our flexible production infrastructure. In addition, when we look at the above-mentioned brand countries, overseas buyers prefer the brands or products in our country, since we have a slightly more reasonable price in some products. In Turkey, because the exporting firms of our sector travel and perform a business trip to these close regions more frequently than the exporters of other countries, they can establish closer relations with the resident buyers in these regions. This brings the manufacturers in Turkey, like us, to a more advantageous position. In other words, customer relations have become very important to be able to compete in the global market. And again, we are in a position to travel to many countries and geographies by using the advantage of the short flight distance, so we want to shape our product range according to market demands and turn our route into markets that we do not touch in more distant locations.

THE MARKET WILL REACH 20 BILLION DOLLARS What needs to be done in order for Turkey's bakery machinery sector to be effective in the global market in the forthcoming period? When we look at the current foreign demands of the sector and according to the demands that come to us, the fact that our country has a rising value and our production infrastructure is flexible will bring an upward acceleration in exports. Of course, after this Covid-19 outbreak, we need to take quick action as a country and the industry.

I believe that from the last quarter of 2020 to 2025, we, as the manufacturers of the sector, will become much better and advantageous. According to 2019 data, the export of the entire bakery machinery sector in our country is around 530 million dollars. If the global size of our industry is estimated to reach 20 billion dollars by 2025 according to research, we need to work harder and increase our market share in the global market.

I think that we will reach the 1.5 billion dollar market in this large volume market until 2025 by leaving the assembly industry behind, producing also some intermediate parts in our country and designing innovative products. According to my forecasts, many buyers and consumers will reduce to supply products from China after the corona virus, so they will move to the nearest region or countries they consider safe. And here, because we have a lot of advantages, they will start to choose manufacturers in Turkey like us. Therefore, as a country, we have to complete our infrastructure quickly and invest in R&D.

WE EXPORT 50 PERCENT OF PRODUCTION What position are you and what are you aiming for as a company? As a company, we have created a dealer and service network at many points in the domestic market; therefore we have obtained a good positioning. We also have been attaching great importance to foreign markets for the last 5 years. We are working hard to develop our company's exports, contribute to the country's economy and create a global brand that has been opened to the world from our country. We organized business trips and participated in many domestic and international exhibitions addressing our industry. As a company, our export constitutes 50% of our production. We have started to export to many regions and countries including the Far East to South America. We currently export to over 40 countries. We plan to increase the number of countries in exports to over 100 within the next 5 years. Of course, the other important factor except for the marketing that has enabled us and will enable us to move fast hereinafter is the requests and suggestions coming from our customers. We plan to continue our R&D studies, add new products to our portfolio with the innovation we apply to our products and with the suggestions of our customers.

WE ARE DEVELOPING A FURNACE FOR DOMESTIC BREAD What preparations do you make for changing consumer demands following coronavirus? After the coronavirus, consumer habits will surely change in our sector in the world. First of all, we think that frozen bakery products that are ready and easy to cook will have more place in domestic consumption. In addition, after this virus experience, people may prefer to consume products that they prepared at home, since they think that it is more hygienic and healthy in this way. In this context, we have a household type furnace project, which we have designed for domestic use, which we will launch soon, is completely different from its counterparts and bakes bakery products in a better and more delicious way. The final prototype of this project will be launched by the end of this year at the latest. In this, we are working to meet both domestic and international demands.

The bakery products industry is gaining global importance. Some furnaces are heading towards frozen products instead of employing too many workers. Grocery store chains such as Migros and BİM cook frozen products and sell when hot. Do you have any preparation or work regarding this market? We are currently carrying out some projects with the grocery store chain that works in this field. Of course, our product portfolio will become clearer after such projects by applying some more active marketing action and with projects such as market chains. But the machines in our product range are already designed to meet the demand in similar projects. In addition, we started to take our place in grocery stores in those countries through our dealers abroad. And from now on, we plan to make changes in our products and infrastructure according to the requests to come from our dealers or end users.

Particularly in our country, street bakery shops performed very successful works in this period. This bakery field can become more widespread worldwide. Have you made any preparation for this? When you look at the product range of our company, 80% of our customers are street bakeries, only 20% of them are big enterprises that perform mass production. The target customers of both our direct sales and our domestic and foreign dealers are street bakers. We design new types of machines that will facilitate the end-users' lives and ensure them serve their products faster, and our R&D team is conducting its works accordingly.

What trends will we witness in the sector from now on? When we look at the future trends of our sector, boutique street bakery comes to the fore. Along with that, sourdough - artisan bread or products and gluten-free products will be preferred more because they are healthier. I think bakers will prefer these products more. Therefore, the bakery machinery sector will also head towards the production of bakery machinery that bakes similar products more precisely. Or I think it will change the designs of the bakery machines in the product range.

In addition, bakers are closely following the internet technology, which is becoming more and more popular in every area of our lives. Businesses that want to make their jobs easier turn to remote control machines. For example, heating the oven remotely before arriving at work in the early hours of the morning or cooking the products in it with remote control will make the life of bakers and businesses easier. I think that such technological furnaces will come to the fore more. Some countries that we see as competitors in our industry have started to proceed in this area. In order to keep up this trend, we have started to work in this field and we plan to develop it further.