Cityfarm – the first organic chain in Turkey

An opportunity presented itself and he took it: Ayhan Sümerli was on the board of a holding company when one of the businesses was to be sold because it was not making a profit. His offer was accepted for the firm Orya, that operates as a wholefood wholesaler and retailer for Cityfarm. Cityfarm had been running six modern specialist shops for some years (see our earlier report) but, once open, customer numbers were too low, and some of the locations had not been well planned either. So two years ago the company was taken over by Sümerli and it has now become the biggest purchaser of Turkish organic products in the specialist retail trade in Turkey. (Picture: Ayhan Sümerli showing the contents of an order about to be delivered)
The 57-year-old is no stranger in the Turkish organic industry. For many years he has been the chairman of Orgüder, the association of organic manufacturers and trade that has more than140 members. “We maintain good contact with the ministries in the capital Ankara, the inspection organizations and the media,” Sümerli explains. He spent most of his professional life in the food industry, for example working for Unilever, but when an opportunity presented itself to move into the organic sector – not just as chairman of an association – he grabbed it with both hands. “Before retiring, I wanted to do something useful,” was how he put it. To get an accurate picture of the organic industry in different countries, he went to the USA, Britain and Germany for three months. He had a good long look at organic supermarkets in Cologne, Berlin, Frankfurt and Hamburg. (Picture on left: Employee at Cityfarm in Anadolu Hisari)

“I was impressed most of all by the Alnatura concept,” he says quite candidly. By chance, the Cityfarm concept that he had taken over two years before was structured in a similar way. As well as supplying the one remaining specialist store, he supplied the conventional trade with an own brand consisting of 220 articles. These products go to the stores of Migros, Carrefour, Metro and Real. The company Orya – founded in 2000 – now delivers to 500 stores in the conventional food trade. With about 330 stores, the Swiss Migros with its subsidiaries Tansas and Macrocenter has the biggest distribution of outlets in Turkey. But Sümerli is convinced: “It’s the specialist trade that brings success,” and this is where he generates half his turnover. (Picture on right: Cityfarm in Anadolu Hisari)

Step by step, he has increased the number of stores over recent years, so that consumers now have eight specialist stores where they can do their shopping. The last one was launched on 28.04.2012 in Istanbul, and by the end of 2012 another three or four are scheduled to open in the greater Istanbul area. Then this organic entrepreneur is going to turn his attention to the towns of Bursa, Eskisehir and Adana. He already had stores in the big cities Ankara, Izmir and Antalya and he reckons that Istanbul has the potential in the medium term for about a dozen. In the long term, the metropole, with an estimated 13 – 17 million inhabitants, to the west and east of the Bosporus could have much greater potential. (Picture: Modern store in Caddebostan)

“Our passion is fresh food,” maintains Ayhan Sümerli, who knows of course that with fresh products you don’t just attract people into your store but secure their loyalty. Compared with other wholefood stores, Cityfarm is doing much better: a big and carefully tended range of fruit and vegetables is an eye-catching feature in all the shops, although it is also strong in the categories dairy products, eggs and meat. You notice that a lot of work has gone into these lines and the number of own brand articles has risen to 380, including fresh foods. With the non-food segment cosmetics, hygiene articles, household and cleaning materials, the product range consists of only about 700 items – enough however to offer the essentials for food shopping. (Picture: Separate chilled room for fruit and vegetables in Anadolu Hisari)

Sümerli is definitely a skilled operator: because you have to pay a lot of tax on imported chocolate and importing organic sugar is not permitted, he has organic chocolate manufactured for him. He imports chocolate drops from a Belgian organic manufacturer, has them melted in a certified organic chocolate factory in Turkey and processed into Cityfarm chocolate. In the long run, customers won’t be satisfied with just dark chocolate and a milk chocolate variant but for now he can satisfy the basic demand with a very good chocolate at the threshold price of 5.90 Turkish lira for 80 g (equivalent of 3.10 euros per 100 g). For comparison: Vivani chocolate (100 g bar) is sold for the equivalent of 4.60 euros in wholefood stores, which is disproportionately expensive. (Picture on left: Customer with her shopping in a trolley built by the company)

Service and friendliness are at the top of Cityfarm’s agenda. There are enough employees to take customers’ shopping out to their cars or to put items for them into the special wooden trolleys. The customer can even ask for their shopping to be driven home for them. There’s also no problem in ordering by telephone, fax or email and having goods delivered at no extra charge. To offer this service, there’s a chilled vehicle (picture) on standby at every store. When enough orders have come in, it delivers at least once a day. Sümerli relies mainly on word-of-mouth advertising by his customers in a city whose main traffic thoroughfares are hopelessly congested. No one knows whether this huge input is worthwhile in the long run. However, the friendly gesture that shows customers they are welcome and valued has to be a sensible initial investment. 4,700 customers receive deliveries to their homes – 40 % of them once or twice a week. We’ll have to wait and see what happens if the service is cut back or a minimum order value has to be introduced. (Picture: Orders on their way to customers)

The biggest of the five stores in Istanbul incorporates a restaurant (picture). “We want to show our customers what’s possible in terms of organic food,” Sümerli explains. At the entrance to the store and looking over the front garden and the street are two tables, each seating four people. Two more look towards the side-street on the left. They offer a different menu every day that is prepared in the basement kitchen. They will have to decide in the future whether to plan restaurants in more stores.

The boss of Cityfarm is insistent that his 75 employees are well trained. He says that hardly anybody has experience of organics when they are appointed. “We regard on-the-job training as very important, and we have an extra employee in each store to see that it’s carried out.” In his view, it’s also extremely important to maintain contact with the producers and manufacturers who package goods under his label. “I visit nearly all of them on a monthly basis,” he explains. By buying direct he not only gets to see how goods are produced, he can also sell his products at lower prices. Sümerli estimates that his prices are 10 - 15 % lower than those of his competitors. “It’s volume that counts,” is his credo, and if not right now, then in the relatively near future. Customer numbers are developing well and amount to 400-500 a day in his seven shops. Given his offer – impressive in all respects – this number could well double within a year. (Picture: Employee helping a customer with her shopping)

He relies primarily on organic products sourced in Turkey that, given the natural conditions of a country in the west of Asia, yields a wide variety of produce. In the last 25 years, however, manufactures have concentrated on exporting and very little ended up in Turkish shops. Now the tide has definitely turned: the specific demand of the developing specialist trade – Cityfarm in the forefront – and the organic weekly markets means that more and more Turkish suppliers are prepared to deliver to customers in Istanbul, Ankara and other centres. “If a manufacturer wants to convert and supply us, I’m most willing to help and I guarantee a minimum order to give him a sense of security,” says Sümerli in a spirit of cooperation. He is delighted that more and more companies want to join the organic sector. (Picture: Dairy product shelves with digital price tags)

Table of Cityfarm stores

address	retail space
Istanbul-Istinye-Shoppingmall	60 m²
Istanbul-Caddebostan	175 m²
Ankara	180 m²
Izmir	65 m²
Antalya	110 m²
Istanbul-Yesilköy	70 m²
Istanbul-Anadoluhisari	230 m²
Istanbul/Nisantasi	130 m²

More information and addresses: http://cityfarm.com.tr/our-stores 

Tip: www.cityfarm.com.tr