We listened 2019 of SAPRO and future plans from Ceyhun ZİNCİRKIRAN who Founding Partner of Sapro Cleaning Products which is honour of Turkey in wet wipes category and have been manufacturing private label production since the day that it was established.

What is the position and export volume of Sapro in the sector?

We continue our activities, which we started in 1997, by producing 1,000 different brands with a daily production capacity of 120 million sheets in a closed area of 45,000 square meters. We lead the industry in Turkey in the wet wipes production with our 40% market share.

On the other hand, we are one of the biggest companies not only in our country but also in Europe in the production of wet wipes. Until 2000, we worked only for foreign markets; but today also sells products in the domestic as well as foreign trade of Turkey’s largest retailer and we provide private label products.

Our productions for the whole world have been continuing since the day we were founded. We are in the first place in the export of wet wipes with the export that we have carried out to six continents for 30 years. Sapro, with our strength in export, closed 2019 with a total turnover of 140 million Euros together with its group companies. 65% of our turnover comes from exports.

Could you give information about the R&D activities you carry out within your organization?

We are among Turkey’s top 300 companies which have invested more in R & D. We follow the technology closely to produce better. All of our works and productions that we carry out as a group require extensive R&D activities. There are 7 different laboratories within Sapro. In our laboratories equipped with state-of-the-art devices, more than 100 parameters are analyzed by experts who are competent in their field in accordance with ISO 17025 standard. It is important that we develop products that comply with EU and international standards. Therefore, we have an R&D philosophy that we apply meticulously with professionals who are experts in their fields. We also started to implement our digitalization strategy. We both digitize our processes and start artificial intelligence studies which all the machines on the line communicate and generate data. Our project, in which all movements depend on automation, continues.

We have project development, R&D, chemical analysis, microbiology laboratory, access control and graphic units within our structure. As Sapro Cleaning we have been producing non-woven products in our own facilities since 2017, and we have been the only company in Europe to produce its raw material.

Are there any future investment plans?

In line with our global expansion strategy, we also aim for growth in the Balkans. In this context, we will realize our plan to open a wet wipe factory in Bulgaria in 2020.

The daily production capacity of the factory will be 8 million sheets.

What are your 2020 goals?

After carrying out all our automation and industry 4 studies, we aim to increase our production capacity and reach 2 times more capacity than it is now. In this direction, we continue our work without slowing down. Our goal is to grow in the American continent by increasing our share in the existing markets. However, we aim to grow in all countries where we operate in exports.

Our other target in 2020 is to be among the top 200 in exports and the top 400 in ISO 500.

We will further increase our production of 330 million pieces in baby towels, 96 million pieces in pocket wipes and 1 billion 800 million pieces in single wipes in 2020. We continue our work in line with the goal of reaching 2-fold capacity in 2023 with capacity increases and automations.

We also want to include our own brand in the e-commerce platform. Turkey and the world in the last two years showing particularly consumer trends change. A trend towards healthy lifestyle trend, environment and animal friendly products has started. As Sapro, we are working with our R&D to keep up with this change. We use 100 percent viscose nonwoven.

Our efforts to reduce the use of plastics continue. We were rewarded with Operational Clean Sweep (OCS) certificate for protecting natural life from possible effects at every stage of our production. We have received a vegan product certificate for our customer in Norway.

Which factors do you consider when developing your products?

The change in the wet wipes category over the past 15 years resulted in a variety of uses. Wet wipes, previously used only for babies, have turned into a general-purpose cleaning material by entering our cars, homes and bags of all of us. While there was an intense demand for cheap and anonymous products in previous years, consumers have preferred to go for products with higher quality and continuity in the last 2 years. Our production is shaped in line with these demands.

In addition, many different applications emerged; Highly functional, daily life-friendly products such as wet toilet paper, torpedo polishing wipes for cars and eyeglass cleaning wipes have entered our lives. During this development, we introduced innovations to the market in terms of technology and innovation. These innovations and developments made important contributions to the progress of the industry.

We are in training and cooperation with materials and chemical manufacturers in wet wipes production. For example, many years ago we broke new ground by directing our suppliers for non allergenic perfume production in Turkey for the first time. We became the first brand to introduce wet toilet paper with the Turkish consumer and to use “interfold” folding and “inline moisturising” technology to provide mothers ease of use in baby towel production.