BEYOND HAZELNUT

Our country, where the world's most delicious and high quality hazelnuts are produced, is also the most important hazelnut producer and we want it to remain so. As a leading food company, we always focus on domestic and national procurement and expand our efforts by recognising the importance of sustainability in agriculture.

In our country, which has an important place in the world in terms of agricultural product diversity, we think that biodiversity should be protected by supporting sustainable agriculture. For this reason, we created the "Sustainable Hazelnut Agriculture Report” with WWF-Turkey in 2015 as part of our efforts to support hazelnuts, which we use abundantly in our flavours, and biodiversity in our country with hazelnut agriculture. With the report, the current situation regarding hazelnut agriculture in Giresun and agricultural inventory and distribution area were determined.  Afterwards, necessary solution proposals were developed for hazelnut production in harmony with nature. Good practices and capacity building studies were carried out in the pilot area selected in Giresun.

Our journey continues within the scope of the "Beyond Hazelnut" project, which focuses on local supply & development and emphasises the importance of sustainability in agriculture. Within the scope of our project, we organised a training programme for our farmers in our Giresun factory in 2023.

In the programme which ise covering our women farmers, we informed them about sustainable agricultural techniques, hazelnut pests, proper control of weeds and diseases. Immediately afterwards, we examined good agricultural practices in our hazelnut garden in our factory.

We had the soil analyses of the fields belonging to the women farmers participating in the programme carried out, and we provided a total of 850 new hazelnut saplings to the farmers who requested them. With the established communication network, we informed the farmers about the important dates of hazelnut practices. We will continue to support the empowerment of farmers and local socioeconomic development.