“It is possible to decrease energy costs and increase quality and capacity with newly developed technologies. For example, on bovine and small cattle feedstuff, while the use of pelpeak before pelletizing ensures 30 – 40% increase in capacity, it also ensures significant increase in pellet hardness values (PDI). In the past, we had to establish a new pellet line to obtain this much increase in capacity, today, on the other hand, we are able to achieve this improvement with a single machine.” Yemtar Mak.San. ve Tic. A.Ş., one of the leading feed technology manufacturers in Turkey, is establishing feed factories in many places in the work for over 35 years. Basic principle of the Bandırma based firm since it was established if to service with a knowledgeable and experienced staff and to offer solutions to its customer in line with technological developments in the world by closely following these developments. We conducted an interview with the Sales Marketing Manager, Emin UYAR to take advantage of the firm’s past on feedstuff technologies and the expertise that comes with it. UYAR told about both the key concerns about Yemtar and the feedstuff technologies and the points to consider in the selection of technology within the frame of its experiences and knowledge in the sector for our readers. Dear Uyar, Yemtar is one of the leading brands in feedstuff technologies. If you don’t mind, could you please tell us about the story of Yemtar and how it achieved today’s success? Although our company has been operating in the field of feed machinery since 1970s, it started off a new journey with the name “Yemtar” by the late Ismail Colak in 1980. We made our very first production in a 100-m2 workshop with 6 employees. We began to grow as the poultry sector began to expand in Turkey since the mid-1980s. We secured our first export to Nigeria in 1986. Our company changed its shell once more as a result of institutionalization efforts we initiated in conjunction with the crisis in 2001. We lost Ismail Çolak, the founder of our company, in 2005. Since then, Abdullah Colak, the son of Ismail Colak, served as the Chairman of the Board. When we look at today we celebrate our 36th year, we see that Yemtar turned out to be a huge factory on a 30.000-m2 land with 12.000-m2 indoor space, which has 170 employees and exports to 47 countries. We achieved this success by sticking to our principles and following the innovations introduced by the date. Could you tell us about the technological solutions uniquely produced by yourself? We know that you deliver turnkey solutions to your customers but what are the technological solutions directly produced within Yemtar Makine in technological aspects? Turnkey feedstuff factories are our primary production, as Yemtar. In addition, we build Turnkey rendering plants, full-fat soy extrusion units, grain storage silos, organic manure plants. Here, we don’t talk about a standard production. The requirements of each customer vary according to its location and the culture. I can tell you that what we do best as Yemtar is to identify the changing requirements of our customers in the most proper way. In this way, we can deliver the most productive solutions to them, economically and technologically. We develop the machinery we manufacture each year technologically and add new machinery to our product portfolio, thanks to the feedback we get from our customers. Could you please provide some details about your role, position either in Turkish or world’s milling industry and your share in milling sector? Can you tell us how many countries you have worked with and how many feedstuff factory you founded over a more than 30-year period. It gets a bit hard to answer to that question if you are a company which has a very long history, like Yemtar. 60% of the machines we manufactured as of 2015 was exported abroad. We aim to increase this rate up to a level of 75% in the next 3 years. We export to 47 countries as of today. When we look at the map, we bring products and services to a rather wide geography. The regions we export; Africa, Russia, Azerbaijan, Turkic Republics, Asia-Pacific countries and Balkan countries and Middle East in particular come to the forefront. Can you tell us about you overseas planning? In what countries do you have agencies, partnerships or offices? How do you provide services to your overseas customers in terms of technical support and training? We have agencies in many countries outside Turkey. Our main objective here is to produce faster solutions to our customers. We make sure that engineering departments are established in most of our agencies and we try to produce solutions to the problems of our customers by training these colleagues within Yemtar. Add to that, we have a very large installation and service team employed at Yemtar. These colleagues spend nearly whole year abroad and deliver services to our customers Could you please tell us about the units which make up a feedstuff factory and the operations in such a unit? We can evaluate a feedstuff factory in 5 main sections as dosing, grinding, mixing, pelletizing and packaging units. Dosing units; is the section where feedstuff begins to get prepared in parties. Raw materials needed in the feedstuff ration are obtained from the granaries with dosage spirals and are transferred to dosage scale. After all the raw materials are weighed, dosing process is completed and they are sent to feedstuff grinding unit. Grinding is the section where the dosed raw materials turn into the desired piece size. Grinding process is done by a hammer mill or by roller mills. Raw materials are broken into desired size with the help of sieves located on top of the mills. Filters are used in grinding units to increase the productivity of the mills. Mixing, on the other hand, is the section where the raw materials in the recipe, prepared in the dosage unit, are mixed homogeneously within itself, with additives like premix and vitamins and liquid products such as oil. Mixers uses in feedstuff factories must be chosen as a suitable model according to type of feedstuff to be produced and types of products that will be mixed. The section where the density of the feedstuff prepared as powder is increased and last form is give in the pelletizing section. Feedstuff coming from the mixer is first taken to pellet press top storage. It is transferred to conditioner from here through a feeder spiral. In the conditioner, vapor if applied to powder feedstuff to ensure it reaches suitable temperature and humidity for pelletizing. Afterwards, feedstuff takes its final form with compressing process in the pellet press. After this, humidity and temperature of the feedstuff is decreased in coolers and it becomes ready for packaging. While vapor is used in conditioners to increase the density of the feedstuff for winged animals, for bovine and small cattle feedstuff, equipment that does pre-compressing and cooking like pelpeak and expander are used to increase pellet quality and capacity. Packaging is the section where the prepared feedstuff is weighed precisely and put in 25-50kg sacks or 500-1000 kg big bag sacks. There are many different feedstuff varieties for different animal groups. Are all these feedstuff types produced with the same technology? Are there different production technologies for each of these product groups? Since digestive systems of animals are different from each other, feedstuff produced for these animals are also produced with technologies according to this. While pelletizing method is used for feedstuff for bovine, small cattle and winged animals, method of cooking with extrusion is used in feedstuff for fish and pets. If we were to give another example; while powder feedstuff is generally used in egg feedstuff, pelletizing and oil covering processes are used in broiler production. What would you think investors who are preparing to build a feedstuff factory should pay attention to on their technology investments or what should they take into consideration while determining their machinery and equipment needs? First of all, feasibility work for the planned investment must be done accurately. Location, proximity to ports and the market, capacity, raw material storage areas of the facility to be established must be planned correctly. In addition, planning of the feedstuff factory suitable for expansion in the future carries importance in respect to lowering costs of future investments. In these types of investments, operation costs have as much impact as the investment cost in the recycling period of the investment. While evaluating the machinery to be chosen for the factory, their energy consumptions, spare parts and service facilities must be taken into consideration. What is the status, impact on technology preference or need of the feedstuff type that will be produced or the country-region the plant will be constructed in? Today, raw materials used in feedstuff production can show difference due to factors such as raw material variety in the country the plant is in and consumer behaviors. A raw material that is not used at all in one region may be in the rations up to a ratio like 30% in another county. In order to be able to prepare a right project, you must first determine the needs of the customer accurately and must produce solutions according to this. At this point, experience of machinery manufacturing firms becomes important. Mr. Uyar, according to you; what is the most sensitive point or process during the feedstuff production process? For example, what is the place and importance of grinding and particle sizes ore mixing and pelletizing in feedstuff milling? Actually there is no single answer to this question. The whole system is tied to each other and only when you fulfill all conditions correctly you will be able to produce feedstuff at a quality you want. Necessary controls and tests must be done in all the processes in order to be able to make the right feedstuff. Work does not even finish here either. Feedstuff you produced must stay in the same quality until it goes in front of the animal in the field. Otherwise, meat, milk and egg productivity of the animals you feed will go down. In order to avoid these problems, every step in feedstuff production process must be executed correctly. What are the benefits choosing the right technology or problems wrong choices will bring to the manufacturers? One of the biggest costs for manufacturers in our country is unfortunately the energy costs. It is possible to decrease energy costs and increase quality and capacity with newly developed technologies. For example; on bovine and small cattle feedstuff, while the use of pelpeak before pelletizing ensures 30 – 40% increase in capacity, it also ensures significant increase in pellet hardness values (PDI). In the past, we had to establish a new pellet line to obtain this much increase in capacity, today, on the other hand, we are able to achieve this improvement with a single machine. At this point, we as the machine manufacturers have lots to do. It is very important to identify the needs of the customer correctly and to offer them the correct solutions. A wrong choice of equipment or wrongly planned plant will cause the customer to continuously lose money. What are the most frequently faced problems related to technology in feedstuff milling? What would you suggest to manufacturers at the point of solving these problems? One of the problems faced in feedstuff factories, maybe the most important one, is the insufficiency of after sales service and maintenance services. Feedstuff factories, due to their way of working, have a dynamic structure. You have to treat the malfunctions and problems you face very rapidly. Firms that form their staff and technical infrastructure in this respect start the race ahead of the others. Lastly, what would you like to add on the subjects of feedstuff milling and feedstuff technologies? As Turkey, we reached a considerable volume in manufacturing of feedstuff machinery. Today, big portion of the machinery and equipment we manufacture is exported. Today, we are in competition with our European, American, Far Eastern competitors. We can only continue this competition by technologically improving our production methods and the equipment we manufacture.