Hayat Kimya, an important player in the hygiene, home care, and sanitary tissue categories in the FMCG industry with its experience of more than 30 years, continues its investments in Turkey without interruption.
Hayat Kimya, an important player in the hygiene, home care, and sanitary tissue categories in the FMCG industry with its experience of more than 30 years, continues its investments in Turkey without interruption. Hayat Kimya, Turkey's largest sanitary tissue producer, is increasing its total investment in Turkey to 2 billion TRY in 5 years with the decision to invest 450 million TRY in a new sanitary tissue plant.
Announcing that Hayat Kimya will invest in a new sanitary tissue facility, Turkey Managing Director Enes Çizmeci said, “We are making another facility investment in the tissue industry to unceasingly continue our sustainable growth with our leading brands that grow the market. We have a cleaning paper facility established on 200,000 m2 land in Mersin, on a 65,000 m2 closed area. As Hayat Kimya, we initiated our efforts to found a new sanitary tissue production facility in this area with an investment of 450 million TRY. With this new facility, which will operate with a capacity of 70,000 tons per year, we will increase our capacity in Mersin to 140,000 tons and our capacity in Turkey to 280,000 tons, and we will maintain our leadership as Turkey's largest tissue producer. With this new generation facility, which will start producing by the middle of 2021, we will provide additional employment for 200 people. Thus, we will increase our employment to 550 people in our campus in Mersin. In this facility, we will produce roll paper, toilet paper, paper towels, napkins, and tissues. 60% of the products will be exported to 50 different countries in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Our newly established smart factory will also have the smart production and management processes of the future”.
Enes Çizmeci continued his words as follows: “You can see that we invest in our R&D studies, technology, and infrastructure development as well as our permanent investments in Turkey. In 2019, we were the leader in powder detergents, softeners, and hard surface cleaners with Bingo, in daily pads with Molped, in branded diapers with Molfix, and in branded toilet papers with Familia. Happily, we climbed to the top in the sanitary tissue category, which we entered in 2006 What was more difficult than getting to the top was staying there, and we succeeded in that, too. We enter 8 out of 10 houses in Turkey with our Hayat branded products. As Hayat, we are the leader in branded tissue paper with roll products with a market share of 42%. We maintain our leadership not only as the market share leader of our brands, but also as Turkey's largest sanitary tissue manufacturer”.
Stating that they work with the belief that everyone has the right to access quality products, Enes Çizmeci continued his words as follows: “As Hayat Kimya, we distinguish ourselves in the industry by offering value-added, innovative products with accessible price policies. In 2018, our export turnover was 375 million USD. We are proud of being in the top 50 for the last 3 years in a row in Turkish Exporters Assembly's ‘Turkey's Largest Exporters’ listing. In this sense, we contribute to the Turkish economy in the production, employment, and export domains, while we work with the enthusiasm of adding value to the globalization of Turkish brands and quality perception.”
Emphasizing the efficient use of the scarce resources of the world, Hayat Kimya transforms natural gas into electricity, heat, and steam with the technology called ‘cogeneration’ and uses it in its production processes. Enes Çizmeci said, “This is a technology that is known in the industry but less preferred because its efficiency levels remain around 25-30%. We took this technology, adapted it to our own production systems and managed to increase the efficiency levels from 30% to 80%. Thus, we meet all the energy needed in the production processes and administrative operations of our smart factories with a single energy input. In fact, we broke a record by pulling this energy efficiency rate up to 88% in our sanitary tissue production facility in Mersin. We have been cited as an example by the 'Turkish Cogeneration and Clean Energy Technologies Association' as the 'Best Practice of the Industry'.
Talking about an Industry 4 project that will differentiate Hayat Kimya in the tissue paper industry worldwide, Enes Çizmeci said: “In giant machines that produce cleaning paper, the biggest loss of efficiency is caused by 40-45 minutes of production and time loss due to paper breakage. As Hayat Kimya, we analyze the changes of approximately 964 different parameters in the 1.2 billion data we have obtained in paper production. When the artificial intelligence project we are working on is completed, anomalies can be detected even when the machines are operating within the lower and upper limits. In other words, the system will understand that there is a problem, the problem will be solved, and production can continue without paper breakage or machine stop. This is an unprecedented practice even in the world. In summary, thanks to our investments in innovation in Turkey, it will be a project that will make a worldwide impact in the sanitary tissue industry”.
Realizing the first and most comprehensive R&D Center investment in Turkey at its Kocaeli campus, Hayat Kimya works with 90 researchers on alternative raw material development, product development and packaging, including reverse engineering. Hayat Kimya cooperates with Koç, Sabancı, ITU, Yıldız Technical, Istanbul University, Kocaeli and Gebze Technical Universities. As a growing Turkish company, it attaches importance to and supports industry-academia cooperation. By participating in the TÜBİTAK 2244 Industry Doctorate Program, it offers 18 doctoral students the chance to work on their thesis projects at the Hayat R&D Center.
We contribute to the quality and innovative perception of Turkish brands by taking the innovative products we develop in Turkey to abroad
Enes Çizmeci summarized their understanding of R&D as follows: “Our R&D approach means not to keep the business in laboratories, but to carry it to the consumer. We use our industrial power and R&D equipment to find the best product. At the center of all of our work is Turkey. We try to contribute to the quality and innovative perception of Turkish brands by taking these innovative products that we developed in Turkey later abroad. With this enthusiasm, we continue our investments in Turkey.”