“We have seen resistance and a smear campaign by our competitors in return for everything we have contributed to the sector so far. This resistance has always made us happy, as such failure complexes are situations that we foresee and used to. Kept reminding us that we were on the right way.”

Abdullah Çolak Chairman Yemtar

Interview by: Cemalettin Kanaş

The market presence established by the Turkish feed machinery manufacturers is a fact widely accepted by industry stakeholders. In this issue, we had the opportunity to interview Abdullah Çolak, Chairman of Yemtar, which has a leading position among these companies. Celebrating the 41st anniversary, Yemtar has attained a place that has become exporting for 27 years on its journey it started with a single welding machine. Realizing that standing on a firm ground in the industry requires innovation, the company management broke new ground by establishing an R&D center that appeals to the feed machinery industry. Mr. Çolak explains that before them, the Gear Driven Pellet Press was a product that Europeans used to play around, but they ended this dominance with the product they developed in their R&D center. Expressing their company goal as "to continue to invest with sustainable growth in [Turkey] and to have a say in the global market", Mr. Çolak gave the good news that their innovation studies continues and that they will unveil a project that is in the final stage towards the end of 2022. Below are the answers of Yemtar Chairman Abdullah Çolak to our questions:

You are celebrating your 41st anniversary at this year. Could you summarize your story for this 41 years? The starting point of our story is a welding machine. The intelligence, ambition and foresight of our founder İsmail Çolak underlie our story. Our founder, our father İsmail Çolak's superior business ethics and honest working principles are the most important legacy he left us. The main source of our struggle was the effort to get rid of poverty. The feed industry was started in our country at 1965. Our father İsmail Çolak, who was more experienced than us in the sector that day, stayed in Germany for 1-2 years and after gaining cultures such as experience and work discipline, he returns home and focuses on machinery manufacturing and feed industry, starting from scratch. Yemtar is born as a result of the trust of institutions and organizations that play a leading role in the feed sector and contribute with their capital and effort to İsmail Çolak.

We lost our founder in 2005. Since 2005, we continue our struggle as two brothers. We made our first export in 1986. Since 1994, our overseas sales have continued to increase intensively. With this process, we started to expand into the international market. These have also made great contributions to us in terms of improving ourselves. We learned how to compete with our competitors in the national market that required innovation. We had to renew and develop ourselves. Considering this, we established our R&D Center and we continue to contribute to the feed industry with continuous innovations.

“WE ESTABLISHED FIRST R&D CENTER OF FEED INDUSTRY”

What can you say about Yemtar R&D team? As Yemtar, we established the first R&D Center of the feed industry sector in Turkey. Of course, our R&D center is a realistic R&D center. It is an R&D center that struggles to actually produce, to add innovation to the sector. One of the most successful projects of our R&D center; It is Yemtar Gear Driven Pellet Press. Until we produced this technology, all of Turkey was importing Gear Driven Pellet Press technology from abroad. In the past 2020, we brought the Smart Type Container Feed Factory, which is a new and very big project, to the sector. Also, with the work of our R&D center, we have also achieved many firsts such as Turkey's which first Organic Fertilizer System, first 1200 mill, first Pelpeak...

“WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN BEHIND THE WORK WE HAVE DONE”

What do you think about the success/satisfaction of your Gear Driven Pellet Press in the industry? Gear Driven Pellet Press technology was, so to speak, an instrument that Europeans playing around. In Turkey, when we said “We can make this machine!”, we got many reactions like “Stop dreaming” . But because of we love to dream, we kept chasing our dreams. Then we started to launch our first product. With a serious work of about 4-5 years, we watched our machine's performance in the field by running it 24/7. We decided to put it on the market at the point where it came of fruitful our eyes. Thankfully, we haven't encountered any major problems other than minor ones so far. There may be minor problems, but there is one thing that the industry knows very well; “Yemtar has always behind the work it has done so far.” We have never left any our products alone with the customer. As a result, we write our brand on our machine. This is our difference. We take the project, we put it into action, we do not leave it alone with the customer. We leave whenever the customer wants it. But if they get any trouble, we'll always be there for them. This is our strongest and most favorite part of us. This is also in our company culture. The comment we always proudly receive on this occasion is “Yemtar does not let anyone down.” has been.

“OUR INNOVATIONS WILL NEVER STOP”

You stated that you have accomplished many “firsts” in the World and in Turkey. What do you owe this leadership? It is our most important asset that our colleagues within the company are equipped, skilled, experienced and innovative. When knowledge, experience and effort come together, success comes by itself. Adding value to our colleagues, customers and suppliers; especially our country, and to reach the result from the common mind of these structures are among our working principles.

First of all, we owe a lot of to the feed industry and we have to constantly innovate and keep innovation active in order to pay this dept. I came to this company in 1993, from the year i came to this company, we are in constant innovation. Every year, we have brought an innovation to the sector as a machine, equipment or Project without saying 2-3-5. We are also happy to know that all our teammates act with this awareness. This innovation will never end, we are working hard to ensure that it doesn’t end.

Do you have any new innovation projects? Can you briefly talk about the projects you have recently worked on? Target is with sustainable growth, to continue to invest in our country and to have a say in the global market. We have new innovation projects. We will bring a new breath to the sector with a Project that we have reached the final stages in a very short time. I guess the sector will have known before the end of 2022. On the one hand we are excited about this period. I seriously want to say “those who think they catch us, will keep watching us from behind”. This is an important slogan for us. We have seen resistance and a smear campaign by our competitors in return for everything we have contributed to the sector so far. This resistance has always made us happy, as such failure complexes are situations that we foresee and used to. Kept reminding us that we were on the right way. We were extra motivated and honored to be told by the customers themselves, not by us, that we were ultimately right. It spurred us to continue our fight with more enthusiasm and more excitement. We will continue to work with all our strength to continue to be a Pioneer in this sector.

Finally, I would like to thank the industry, our founder and all my colleagues for giving me this support and this working power.