Istanbul… Final Considerations

Nothing short of a vibrant megalopolis, Istanbul gives you just a taste of the scale of this vast country. Chaotic traffic, lovely food and beautiful landscape this is what I’ve taken home with me after this trip. Business-wise, all of my meetings with supermarkets, importers and trading companies have been very friendly and welcoming. It’s clear though that the local consumer is still quite unfamiliar with imported goods and the education in regards to ‘non-turkish’ food has quite a way to go yet. The reason for this may lie in the fact that there aren’t big expats communities living in Turkey (as opposed to Asia for example) and also Turkey is itself a big food manufacturer with quite an advanced know-how. Controversely to packaged goods, I have found very positive synergies for what concerns the trading of bulk goods with different origins like pulses, seafood and dairy powders. Surely a market to watch very closely!

BIM Turkey – a Winning Hard Discount Model

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A quick stroll through the aisles of a BIM supermarket will take you to the unpretentious world of a ‘no frill’ hard discount. Very close to the Aldi model, here there is no trace of fancy imported delicatessen, most of the produce is made in Turkey and presented stock piled in carton boxes.

Migros Turkey – a Nicely Appointed Retail Concept

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Visiting Migros supermarket in Istanbul last week, I was impressed by an appealing visual merchandise and pleasant shopping experience. If compared with other retailers in the region Migros possibly wins the prize for the best offering of imported foods (though it is still very minimal compared for example with some Asian supermarkets). It is strategically located in the suburbs to cater for the growing middle-class. Here are some pics for you.

Hello from Istanbul and… some Thoughts on the E Coli Outbreak

Apologies for my silence this past week, but I have been through a few super busy days in preparation to my business trip to Turkey where I arrived this morning. By the look of it I’ll have lots to report from this emerging and vibrant new market. I’ll try to visit a few supermarkets/retailers in between appointments and take a few snapshots of the shelf offerings.

Also for those of you that noticed I didn’t do a trade show post for the month of June, because I didn’t think there was anything relevant to suggest, but by all means if you do have any suggestions please send them through…

Lastly, a word on the recent E Coli outbreak in Germany. It seems that food scandals have no boundaries and do affect even the ‘highly regulated’ EU market. Considering we are still in the dark on what to blame, firstly it was cucumbers, then meat, now it appears bean sprouts may be at the source of the outbreak and a pitiful blame game has been going on between producing countries like Spain and Germany, it appears we are not doing all that well in protecting end consumers and public safety after all. As the Guardian puts it we are all victims of a broken food chain fuelled by profits, greed and globalisation. We ultimately can have very little if no control at all over the possible outcomes of a system that is geared to churning out vast volumes of food and raising productivity, but at the lowest cost. It seems to me that in the end all the regulations and paperwork manufacturers, farmers, importers, exporters, retailers are snowed under only serve the purpose of creating some sort of legal traceability for institutional convenience if a problem does arise, instead of safeguarding public health as the first priority.