Ross Murray and Will Wilson travelled to Izmir in Turkey for Agro Expo 2025, the largest agricultural trade fair in Turkey with over 460 exhibitors.
The aim of the trip was to establish the relationship with the Kurstan Group a large company that have expressed an interest in selling Silostop films (more information below).
Another objective was to identify more opportunities and distributors in the region. Turkey is the perfect place to make these links as it has strong trading links across Russia, the ‘Stans’, north Africa and the Middle East.
Before we attended the show, we short listed 16 companies to visit and were able to meet them all (minus two no shows).
The main company that we were interested to see was a Turkish company called Kurtsan. After a random meeting Tim had with the owners whilst walking to the Eurotier site we knew that they had previously sold competitor films.
Kurtsan have been going since 1985 and have been involved in agriculture since then. They work mainly with milking equipment but have then diversified into other affiliated products. They currently export to 85 countries and have over 260 dealers in Turkey.
Since Eurotier I have been in contact with the owner and arranged a meeting at the Expo in Turkey. Thankfully he was very receptive and knew a lot about our products. We sat with him for about 40 minutes, and he is very happy to now start selling Silostop products. He also said he could look to sell to various other countries that we're not involved with (Uzbekistan, Iran etc) so the future with them could be exciting.
They also have a large range of products that they manufacture and in the future, there could be a possibility of Kurtsan supplying Intershape if those products are of interest. In conclusion I am hoping it could be a very fruitful relationship.
Other countries/ ROW
Sudan, Dr Gehad Haggar – Ministry of Animal Resources Sudan. – Silage can only be made in Sudan under irrigated conditions, there is a drive for bigger dairy units to enhance food security.
Further research suggest that we should look to work with a larger dairy unit called Al Waha, which has an irrigation system and the ability to grow silage (and silage bunkers) this farm is owned by the DAL group - https://www.dalgroup.com/2021/06/17/dairy/
Iran (subject to sanctions) Dr Sahar Akbari – Commercial Manager Foudeh Group – Foudeh make milk replacers and feed additives for the Middle East. I recognise the name and will check we haven’t worked with them before.
Other notable exhibitors
Ileri Plastic Manufacturer – Turkish manufacturer of bale wrap and silage plastic, knows about oxygen barriers but doesn’t have the technology to make them. Cool plastic cutting credit card things for marketing give aways.
Besyol Plastik - Another Turkish plastic manufacturer. They make silage cover as well as mulch films, orchard films and various other films and hoses. The silage films are all 150 micron but only go up to 12m wide.
