Turkish company plans to export fresh meat to Middle East

ŞANLIURFA

Faruk Kayar, deputy executive director of Namet, says the consumption of meat is very high in the Middle East, but the region is unable to produce enough to feed itself.

One of Turkey’s leading red meat companies is prepared to export fresh meat to the regional countries, particularly to the Middle East, with its stock farm located in the southern part of the country.

Namet, a Turkish red meat production and processing company, plans to export fresh red meat to Middle Eastern countries to meet the demand for fresh and high-quality products in this market.

The company bought a livestock farm with the capacity for 23,000 animals in the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa last year from Koç Holding with an investment of 15.5 million Turkish Liras and plans for this farm to be the key in opening up to foreign markets.

“The market in the Middle East is both geographically close to us and our palatal delights are similar. The consumption of meat is very large, but the production is low in this market. This is why we want to start our exports there first,” Faruk Kayar, deputy executive director of Namet, said in a recent press conference held in Şanlıurfa. “The people in the Middle East are fed up with frozen meat products.

Namet will make a difference by providing fresh meat to this market apart from a large variety of our other products,” said Kayar, a member of Kayar family, which has worked in the red meat business for four generations.

Kayar said they will use the advantage of the location of their livestock breeding farm in Şanlıurfa, in which they currently have 13,000 cattle. “We can deliver the fresh red meat, produced at the Şanlıurfa farm and carried in refrigerated trucks, to Jeddah in 46 hours,” Kayar told a group of reporters. The company has also the advantage of producing halal meat in the Muslim regions.

“Our goal is to export 50 percent of our total red meat production in the next two years. We have arranged our investments and growth plans on this goal,” said Kayar.

The company has another farm in the western province of Sakarya. Kayar said they are ready to take action to meet the red meat need in the domestic market by investing in their livestock farm in the province of Antalya after they start exporting to the foreign markets. Red meat consumption increased 28 percent in Turkey between 2010 and 2013, according to the Turkish statistics institute’s data.

Namet’s move to plan exports in the regional countries came after Bahrain-based alternative investment manager Investcorp invested in the company by acquiring a minority stake earlier this year. Namet was acquired in 2005 by members of the Kayar family, which has been involved in trading livestock since 1929.