WHEAT METRIC TON PRICE MAY BE OVER 400 USD
After the 16th International Congress and Exhibition of TFIF, one of the most important organizations of the grain industry and the Global Grain Congress held in Geneva, Hasan Hacıhaliloğlu, CEO of Taban Gıda, which supplies mainly wheat grain, feed group and oilseeds from different markets of the world made evaluations about the developments waiting for the sector.
Bakers are having a hard time due to the ninety percent increase in bread flour since the harvest time. There were some bakers who had to close their shutters in the face of constantly increasing flour prices and other inputs. In addition to bakers, all industry stakeholders are also experiencing troubled times due to rising prices. The depreciation of the Turkish lira causes the sector stakeholders in our country to be even more affected by this situation. CEO of Taban Gıda, Hasan Hacıhaliloğlu, said ”Recently, we came together with valuable participants from many countries at the Turkish Grain Congress held in Antalya with the cooperation of the Turkish Grain Board (TGB) and the Turkish Flour Industrialists’ Federation (TFIF) and at the Global Grain Conference held in Geneva, Switzerland and we had the opportunity to evaluate the sector and look for solutions to problems. As in the whole world, agricultural commodity prices in our country are at the highest levels of recent years. At the Global Grain Conference, we saw that international sector representatives had similar concerns. It seems that the increase in agricultural commodity prices, especially wheat, will continue in the coming days. The quota to be implemented by Russia, the world’s largest wheat exporter, by the start of the New Year, seems to support the rate of increase in prices. We estimate that the metric ton price of wheat will be over 400 USD in the near future”.
Hasan Hacıhaliloğlu, CEO of Taban Gıda, said, “The sale of low-priced raw materials also intimidates the farmers who will plant, causing a decrease in planting amounts.”
Stating that TGB has taken various steps to prevent the prices of bread, pasta and feed from increasing further, Hasan Hacıhaliloğlu said, “The first of the measures TGB has taken is the raw material sales that it offers to the market at almost half the market prices. However, the fact that it bases these sales on various commitments causes confusion in the market. For example, TGB’ request of the very low-priced sales commitment for the entire factory capacity, not for the amount that can be produced with the tonnage it supports caused many manufacturers to not be able to use this support. This situation caused the market raw material sales prices to rise even higher. In this way, low-priced raw material sales also intimidate the farmer who will plant, causing a decrease in planting amounts. Instead of selling low-priced raw materials, it would be much more beneficial in every respect to support the end products offered by the manufacturers under strict controls.”
“The solution lies in producing our own needs.”
Stating that Our country has very serious capacities in flour, pasta and feed production, Hasan Hacıhaliloğlu said, “Again, there are many manufacturers in the sector with very strong infrastructure and equity capital in these areas. When we consider all these, our problem will never be about supply. The main issue that needs to be mentioned should be the issue of price increases. Although there are many companies in the sector that can handle these fluctuations, there will also be companies that cannot continue their commercial activities. Especially the effort to keep the bread prices at a certain level causes the bakers to have a very difficult time. The solution lies in producing our own needs. All support and planning that will ensure that such strategic product groups can be produced sufficiently in the focus of needs should come into our lives as soon as possible. I hope that the sector’s problems can be resolved by taking more permanent and planned steps as soon as possible.”
The search for a flour factory has begun.
Taban Gıda CEO Hasan Hacıhaliloğlu said “The pandemic has increased the stock holding capacity of countries, especially in agricultural commodities. Wheat was the key product of last year and this year. Countries like China, which is in the first place in production, started to stock more. China, India and Russia share the top 3 in wheat production in the world. The average production of Türkiye is 15 million tons. “We have been among the top exporting countries in the world since 2005. We are in the second place after Italy in pasta export. In recent years, we have risen to the top in biscuit production. This success of Türkiye is extremely valuable in terms of value-added production and exports. In the past, we were self-sufficient in wheat production as a country. We were only importing the necessary wheat to produce the product to be exported. Currently, there is an import requirement to be able to export. Grain must be imported first and then exported. Placing a production move at the forefront of its plans, Taban Gıda started feasibility studies for an investment in a flour factory with a capacity of 1000 tons/day, either in the country or abroad. Operating in nearly 20 countries in the Asian, African and European markets and supplying grain, feed group and oilseeds, mainly wheat, Taban Gıda has invested a total of 100 million dollars in production, logistics and storage in a 3-year period has aimed to carry the leadership it assumed in the country to the global markets as well.