NEWS

Ülker will celebrate its 80th anniversary in 20204. On this occasion, Ülker recently unveiled its sustainability principles and goals for 2024 goals under a new motto, “This World is Ours.”

The company’s “approach to sustainability” has expanded “sustainability” to cover all areas of business life beyond just the environment. Its targets thus fall under six categories: “environment,” “value chain,” “innovation,” “employees,” “social responsibility,” and “leadership.”
Yıldız Holding Food – Ülker Group’s President Mehmet Tütüncü said, “Our job is to make food. In doing so, one hand touches the soil, the other touches people. We’ve placed our vision of sustainability at the heart of how we do business. To us, sustainability means valuing soil and water, and making sure that our farmers, our employees, our customers, and society are all happy.”
A reputable company cannot turn its back on the world’s future.
Tütüncü noted his company has focused on sustainability and giving back to society.

“Sustainability allows us to keep our business running well into the future. Today, no reputable company can turn its back on our planet’s future. We live on a world where brand value and intangible assets are what give us credibility. On international stock exchanges, investors choose to buy shares from companies that manage, manufacture, and trade their resources responsibly. Customers prefer to buy brands that use their resources wisely, so that they last. Younger people also want to work with companies that have good global business strategies. Research shows that this rate has risen by 84%.”

Sabri Ülker’s “Waste-Free Company Model” 
Tütüncü pointed out that that Ülker has valued sustainability since day one. “Sabri Ülker’s “Waste-free Company Model” was our very first effort towards sustainability. Mr. Ülker had founded a company that did not waste even a gram of flour, a drop of water, or labor of a single worker. We’ve built today’s sustainability efforts around those early principles. This vision has guided us on how to utilize our resources efficiently, make our employees feel valued, develop the [food] sector, and create social responsibility projects. All our colleagues are volunteers on this job, beginning with our Chairman of the Board of Directors.”

Tütüncü added that that many a valuable study has been carried out on sustainability in Türkiye: “We’ve put sustainability at the heart of our business strategy. The only way we can achieve that is by setting long-term goals. We’re proud of the fact that we lead this area. Our business model forces us to be aware of our responsibility as a leader, use our resources effectively, reassure our investors, contribute more to society as we ourselves grow, and respond pro-actively to ever-shifting customer behaviors. Thus, when we invest in sustainability in the information age, we want to create maximum value for our corporate investors and shareholders on the financial market. To do this, we manage our intangible assets well — that is, human capital, brand reputation and innovation power.”
According to Tütüncü, Ülker’s goals for 2024 are:

• Cut down logistics-related carbon emissions by 20%

• Use 20% less plastic in packaging
• Expand without increasing its carbon footprint
• Curb its employee turnover rate from 5% to 3.5%.

Aliağa Wheat is Ready to Be Sewn for Biscuit Production

Begüm Mutuş (Coordinator of the Ülker Sustainability Platform) recently told about the what Ülker is working on project-wise under their “This World is Ours” campaign.
One such a project is wheat specifically meant for making biscuits, which they started back in 2007 with the Konya Bahri Dağdaş International Agricultural Research Institute.

“Most of the wheat produced in Türkiye is meant for making bread. Much of that is the fruit of extensive research. However, no one (until we came along) had done anything about wheat for making biscuits. That was our starting point. Between 2007 and 2014, we teamed up with the Konya Bahri Dağdaş International Agricultural Research Institute to breed a high-yield wheat in order to make biscuits with. The fruit of our labor was Ali Ağa wheat. Now, we’ve obtained permission from the government and begun testing it out. Now we hope to convince more farms to grow it. If we can, then we’ll have done something for Türkiye’s agriculture sector and for the Turkish economy.”

A new inventory plus conservation project are on the way for Giresun hazelnuts

Mutuş said that Ülker buys roughly 10,000 tons of hazelnuts per year, making it Türkiye’s largest hazelnut purchaser. She then added that they teamed up with the Wildlife Conservation Foundation (WWF)-Türkiye to launch the “Giresun Hazelnut Inventory Study & Conservation Project”:

“We buy our hazelnuts from Giresun. [The Province of] Giresun produces some of the best quality hazelnuts in Türkiye’s and the world over. We also process much of hazelnuts we use in our products at our Giresun plant. They are a huge asset both for us and for the whole country. We’ve recently begun collaborating with WWF-Türkiye on a project on hazelnut farming and biodiversity. We’re focusing on those regions that produce hazelnuts, with Giresun taking center stage.”
Mutuş told us topics they plan to focus on: 

• Sustainable hazelnut farming
• Eliminating the possible negative impact that hazelnut farming can have wildlife (including flora) and their habitats
• Researching ways to strengthen the coexistence hazelnut farming and wildlife
• Finding ways to use soil and water more efficiently
• Informing the public about alternative farming practices

CORPORATE EFFORTS THUS FAR

• “We recycled about 41% of our left over packages from products that we’d launched between 2010 and 2013.
• We’ve slashed our carbon emissions by 117,750 tons with the past 5 years.
• We’ve slashed our carbon footprint in all of logistics operations by 16% within the past three years.
• We’ve now use 20,000 tons less sugar and 550 tons less salt in our products – a change we’ve accomplished within past 5 years.
• We offered 2 million children across Türkiye the chance to play sports and engage in various culture and education activities.
• We’ve collaborated with Istanbul Technical University so that we can develop ourselves academically and industrially.
• We’ve joined the World Cacao Foundation and PACTS so that we can invest in sustainable cacao farming.
• We published the Responsible Nutrition Communication Guide. 

TARGETS BY 2024

• Cut down our carbon emissions per product by 40% with green energy supply at all Ülker Biscuit factories. To maintain a waste-free policy by recycling everything.
• Generate renewable energy by adding solar panels to our factories (where possible)
• Slash our carbon footprint in our logistics operation by 20%
• Cut how much plastic we use in packaging by 20%
• Cut how much paper we use by 20% (i.e. save 6,000 tons of paper annually)
• Expand without raising our carbon footprint
• Generate 50% less packaging waste,
• Become 25% more energy efficient
• Use 30% less water in our factories,
• Curb our employee turnover rate by 3.5% (from 5%)
• Curb the environmental footprint of our products their entire life cycle
• Cut down our return raw materials and packaging by 50%
• Raise the employee unionization rate at Ülker Biscuits from 74.7% to 98.9%.