Olivka Foods
TURKEY
carefully packaged and delivered in the company’s own refrigerated vehicles to all the main cities in western Turkey. The initiative is also intended to increase fish
consumption in Turkey and so the website includes several simple recipes that were developed by a local chef to encourage consumers to eat more fish.
Olivka Foods
On the Aegean Sea coast seabass and seabream are farmed on land in ponds. Olivka Foods is the biggest practitioner of this kind of cultivation.
pandemic the company launched an internet sales channel called Hadi Balik (C’mon Fish). Consumers in Turkish cities can select from a range of fish and seafood products on the website
(hadibalik.com) and have their order delivered to the door. The company assures buyers that the cold chain from the ponds to the customer’s house will not be broken, so the products are
Yasyer Mahallesi, Burunyuva Mevki Sokak no. 30 Milas, Mugla Turkey +90 252 5176181 info@olivka.com.tr www.olivka.com.tr Managing director: Berke Kardes Activity: Production of large (15 g) vaccinated seabass and
seabream juveniles; marketsized seabass and seabream raised in earthen ponds and offshore cages Capacity: 1,450 tonnes Product: Whole round fish on ice Grow-out ponds: 132 Offshore cages: 16 Certifications: GLOBALG.A.P., BRCGS, IFS Markets: Europe, Turkey
With its investments in a hatchery Sürsan now controls every step of the production chain
Full integration offers many advantages The seabass and seabream farming sector in Turkey is characterised by companies of all shapes and sizes—from the small family-owned enterprise producing 30 tonnes of fish in earthen ponds for the local market to vertically integrated groups producing thousands of tonnes in sea cages and with feed production, processing facilities, hatcheries, sales and marketing units, and customers across the world.
A
company that started out as a producer of fishmeal and fish oil, Sürsan has since expanded both upstream into catching capacity and downstream into fish feed, and seabass and seabream production, processing, marketing, and sales—and thus clearly falls in the second category.
New packaging facility creates more space for processing operations Fish production started in 2008 in the Aegean Sea along the west coast of Turkey. Both seabass and seabream are farmed though of the total production of 13,000 tonnes about 42
70% is seabass. A packaging and processing plant was opened in 2013 and was certified to several international standards (IFS, BRC, GLOBALG.A.P., Sedex, ASC), but since 2020 packaging operations have moved to a dedicated grading factory while the filleting and freezing operations have remained. The split in operations was to increase the capacity as doing everything in the one unit was not practical. Now, the fish from the cages is sent to the grading facility first and from there 60-70% comes to the processing facility. The rest is packaged whole on ice and shipped. In another recent development, Sürsan has established its own hatchery for the production of fingerlings and
has also built a nursery, an intermediate stage between the hatchery and the offshore cages used for on growing. The nursery in fact was built before the hatchery as the latter is a bigger and more complex operation. Today, the company has its own broodstock which produce the eggs. These are hatched and the larvae grown to fingerlings, which are transferred to the nursery. The fish are vaccinated and finally transferred to the sea when they reach 15-20 g, which gives better mortality and FCR rates, because the fish are stronger and are vaccinated, says Kerem Göksel, the sales manager. The production of fingerlings in the hatchery is so far only for the
company’s own use, but as capacity increases juveniles will be sold to the industry too. In 2021 the hatchery’s capacity was increased from 26m to 39m juveniles, so the plan to start selling to the industry is likely to be realised soon.
From fishing to fish feed The company has its own vessels in the Black Sea fishing for anchovies. The catch is supplied to the three fishmeal and fish oil plants that Sürsan owns in Samsun, Sinop and Rize at the Black Sea. These ingredients are used to produce fish feed at the company factory in Samsun. The entire production goes to feed the
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