Agro business firm tops list of Anatolian giant firms

ISTANBUL

Tiryaki Agro, an agriculture and food industry firm based in the southeastern province of Gaziantep, has maintained its place as the largest firm in Anatolia with 3.5 billion Turkish Liras of annual revenue, according to an Ekonomist magazine survey conducted with the Turkish Economy Bank (TEB). 

Tiryaki Agro was founded in 1980 by Ali Tiryakioğlu as a small-scale lentil processing facility. Today, it is renowned to be the largest agricultural company in Turkey in the fields of supply, production and processing, storage and trading of agricultural food products. 

It operates in the fields of pulses, grains, dried nuts, organic food and oil seeds, and manages the supply chain between producers and sellers. 

TosÇelik, a steel company based in the southern province of Hatay, also protected its seat as the second largest Anatolian company with annual revenue standing slightly above 3 billion liras. Tosyalı Holding, the owner of the steel company with its head office in Hatay’s İskenderun district, has many production facilities in the provinces of Osmaniye, Istanbul and İzmir, and Algeria, Serbia and Montenegro.

Yıldız Entegre, a forestry products firm from the northwestern province of Kocaeli, ranked third this year again with revenue of nearly 2.8 billion liras. 

Yildiz Entegre exports to more than 50 countries and employs more than 2,000 people. 

Eti Gıda, a food firm, which jumped to fourth place from seventh, kept its place with revenue of 2.67 billion liras. Based in Eskişehir, Eti produces and sells biscuits, flavored crackers, packaged cakes, chocolates and confectionaries. 

Sarkuysan, another firm based in Kocaeli, moved to fifth place, climbing up one spot, with more than 2.55 billion liras in revenue. 

The copper cable maker was founded in 1972 and went public the same year, becoming publicly owned by 1612 investors. Today it has some 5,000 shareholders and has a production facility in the U.S. 

Erbakır, another copper firm based in the western province of Denizli, ranked sixth with nearly 2.34 billion liras of revenue. 

Iron and steel giant Kardemir, sugar maker Konya Şeker, Kocaeli’s steel firm Kromaj Çelik, poultry firm Banvit from Balıkesir, dairy brand Sütaş from Bursa, and the Aegean power provider Aydem followed respectively. 

The smallest firm in the top 100 list was Çınar Boru, a steel pipeline maker, with 493 million liras in revenue.