We Conducted an Interview with Mehmet Albar

We conducted a very engaging interview with Mehmet Albar, Chairman of the Board at Albar Kimya. Mehmet Albar opened the doors of his company to our team, and while telling us about the past, present and future of the firm, he also spoke about the targets both the company and he personally have set. I wish you pleasant reading.  

Could you tell our readers about yourself and your background?

I was born in 1965. I am a native of Izmit. I graduated from the Chemistry Department of Izmit Industrial Vocational High School in 1985. After completing my studies, I never thought of entering a factory to work. I had a work experience as a sales counter clerk, or as it is called today, a sales representative, at a company dealing in agricultural chemicals and chemical products distribution in Izmit. After that, I did my military service, and when I returned, my brother and I founded Albar Ticaret and started our first business venture this way. I was 22 years old then. My brother Metin Albar was 18. Together we embarked on such a journey. We were both brothers and partners. Thus, in the period from 1988 until today, we renewed ourselves and moved forward. We renewed and developed ourselves according to the country's conditions, the developing economy and evolving industrial sectors. During this period, from a two-person commercial venture, today we continue as the Albar group with 75 colleagues. We became a family of 75 people. The feelings we had when we started out in 1988 are the same feelings with which we are happy about the point we have reached today. Of course, our life was quite good until September 2021. We did not like 2021, we could not like it. Unfortunately, we lost my 52-year-old brother and partner in a senseless traffic accident. While this deeply saddened us, when I think about it today, I am glad that Metin was my brother, glad that I was his older brother, and glad that we embarked on this business journey together. I experience the joy and pride of reaching our 1988 targets with Metin. Today, I wish this interview could be conducted by Metin Albar as it has been so far, but we will continue on the same path with Metin's daughter and our children, in other words with the second generation, to reach the same target. This actually motivates us. While working towards those targets and doing things, we continue our journey by conducting internal accounting: if Metin were here, this is how he would do it, what would Metin say about this, how would Metin do it. As Mehmet Albar, 2021 was the most difficult year in my more than 30-year business career. Not economically, of course. There was the pain of losing my brother. We have gradually gotten used to living with this pain. We plan to raise the second generation after us with our original feelings and to reach our targets. They have taken ownership of this business. This year, Metin Albar's daughter Betül Albar will graduate from the Chemistry Engineering Department in June. She will also come and continue to add value to our company together with our family. God willing, as long as we live and our health permits, we will continue to operate in this sector.

What would you like to say about your company? What are the criteria that shape your success strategy?

When Metin and I started in trade in 1988, we sat down and when I shared my idea of entering trade with Metin, we set five criteria for ourselves. The first of these criteria comes from a word that our father said to us as Albar: "I have been walking the streets of Izmit as Kadir Albar for forty years; if you are not going to live with the feeling that Ali will come from there and Veli from here, and if you can continue the respectability that comes from our family, then do business, and I will give you whatever support I can." We decided to continue our trade within the framework of respect taught by the people who raised us, just as it was in those times when the word spoken from the mouth was binding. Rather than making money, we set out to gain people, always knowing that money can always be made but trust and people are very difficult to gain, and we have never compromised on this journey. The other was that we would carry both brotherhood and partnership together, and we said we would continue our journey without tiring or getting weary. Thus, the foundation of our success is having these specific criteria, and today as the Albar family we see where we started and where we have come. These criteria have been very right for us. We have grown from a 17-square-meter workspace to a large family today with a total of 5,000 square meters and over 70 employees. We did not come to these points easily as a company. We achieved success through unity and solidarity. Of course, our greatest strategy has been to see our employees as a family. We see our employees as part of the Albar family and we have all grown together. We explained our strategies and targets, and they adapted to us. Therefore, our success comes from here. We also closely followed the sector. We did not act solely according to one sector. We worked in areas such as the food sector, automotive sector, mining sector, water sector, etc. Therefore, during our business life, if there was a crisis in one sector, we resorted to supplementing with other sectors. In addition to this, we made the right moves by correctly identifying the needs of the country's enterprises. We sourced the right products. We took on the distribution of the right products. We were part of the team that received training from the Germans on the first pool chemicals in Turkey. We worked for a long time and then moved to different sectors. We constantly moved forward by correctly identifying product needs and sectors. We worked constantly without stopping or getting tired. And when you work, success comes, of course. There is no blessing without hardship. I can say that our success stems from the factors I have mentioned.

Which sectors do you serve? What are your product varieties?

As the Albar group, we actually meet many needs from the entrance to the exit of an industrial facility. From raw materials used in factories to chemicals analyzed in laboratories, laboratory equipment, treatment processes, water-related groups, boiler rooms, and odors from factory waste, we serve every area. At the point we have reached now, we have slowly begun a branding journey by manufacturing specific products either on a contract basis or under our own brand. Because my two sons have been in the sector for 4 years. One is a Food Engineer and one is a Chemical Engineer; by combining their education with our experience, we aim to move into production and to continue our own brand journey by producing special products.  

Last year was a year when the effects of the pandemic were intensely felt, and these effects are still ongoing. How was your company affected by this situation and what measures did you take?

The pandemic affected life and trade in our country as well as around the world. When the pandemic started, we first adhered to health rules by thinking about our employees' health and our own health. We started working from home. We saw that the pandemic was not something that would come and go, but would last for several years, so we thought that more chemicals would be in demand for the pandemic, and we concentrated especially on the supply of raw materials used in disinfectants. Because we are a raw material supplier. During that period, we initially overcame the effects of the outbreak by implementing such an operation. As time went on and people got used to it and business life and social life continued, needs returned to their normal course, and then we said we should enter different sectors. Here we brought the scent group to the forefront. Because when people were locked in their homes, they started to notice smells they hadn't noticed before. We also took on the distribution of a French company consisting of natural and synthetic oils, and continued our way from there. We were not affected commercially by the pandemic; on the contrary, we recorded growth because just as we courageously started out in 1988, on rough seas we did not cut the throttle but rather did the opposite: we set the right targets and chose to move faster and continue on our way. Without taking very large risks but by taking specific risks, we grew through the pandemic period commercially. With this pandemic, along with the economic problems that emerged in our country and around the world, again without taking excessive risk but by making the right moves, we continued our way without laying off any personnel, and to the contrary, by adding new colleagues to the Albar family and experiencing no problems.

What is the importance of R&D for Albar Kimya? Could you tell us about the R&D projects you have been conducting recently?

Albar Kimya was founded by me and Metin Albar, but now the second generation has joined. The second generation also received education entirely focused on the chemistry sector. Therefore, with their arrival, we discussed with Oğuzhan and Batuhan Albar whether we could produce very specific products. After Metin's passing, Arif Albar, my older cousin who studied chemistry, also joined our system, and thus we established a separate R&D team led by Oğuzhan Albar and Arif Albar. Here, in particular, Arif has forty years of experience in the metal pipe and steel sector. Working with him, R&D work continues on products suitable for this sector that do not harm nature and the environment. Similarly, instead of importing from abroad in the scent group, we are trying to create our own brand in Turkey; part of the R&D for this is already complete. We got results. We have now started selling our own brand in Turkey. We started making our equipment under our own brand. As of 5 January, we also sent the first shipment of these units abroad. There we have continuously opened a market that will be used regularly both as equipment and as consumable materials. We sent it to India. Therefore, we will expand our R&D further here and will probably establish an R&D Center under the leadership of Oğuzhan. Because there is much to be done and produced. There are many products coming from abroad. We are gradually starting to produce these ourselves here. We have reached the final stage on this R&D Center. Probably by the end of February we will also take our place in the R&D Center as the Albar family. Without R&D there is no success. Without R&D there is no production, unfortunately.

What is your perspective on technology at Albar Kimya? How do you define the importance of technology and digitalization in the sectors you serve?

The world was very small before but now with technology it is even smaller. If we do not keep pace with this technological transformation, it is impossible to conduct trade. We have to follow technology both in terms of the chemistry sector and in terms of our internal operations system. Therefore, with the influence of the pandemic, as people's work and living environment developed to be independent rather than together, we were forced to turn in that direction. Particularly in the field of laboratory equipment, under the leadership of Batuhan Albar, we closely follow international developments. We make special efforts to bring process equipment from there to Turkey. We also update the software of laboratory equipment that we have produced ourselves, developing our system every day. Unless we do this, it is not possible for us to survive anyway. I am as sure as I am of my own foot that the new generation of technology will bring it faster than us.

If your company has initiated or pioneered a corporate social responsibility project, could you inform us about it?

Since 1999, I have held positions as an administrator in many civil organizations operating in Kocaeli and Turkey. I have served as a founder in the activation of some civil society organizations. After losing my brother, as a family we set two targets for ourselves in terms of social responsibility. One of them is that we are working to ensure that needy children have access to education from primary school to university. We have increased this number somewhat and we will continue to strive for it to increase with each passing year, and if I succeed, as a second goal, I want to establish the Metin Albar Education Foundation. I have shared this with my children and Metin's daughter. We have such a goal. We have done the groundwork for this, but we currently have commitments and collaborations with three active civil society organizations throughout Turkey, and we regularly contribute materially and morally to their activities every month, but in the future, in terms of social responsibility and serving this country, I really want to establish the Metin Albar Education Foundation. We will do whatever we can for it.

What measures do you take while producing for a more sustainable world? How would you define Albar Kimya's perspective on sustainability in this context?

Of course, the resources and blessings of the world are not infinite. Therefore, regarding sustainability, first of all, we have a project that we started in 2019 and completed in 2020 in our own facility. First and foremost, we do not want to throw any material or substance into the waste. Whether it is paper, wastewater, or spare parts from technological equipment, we have seriously researched these and cooperated with institutions or municipalities where recycling is provided, making efforts to contribute. Of course, raw materials are becoming scarce worldwide, and the situation is the same in Turkey. For this reason, within our R&D projects, we are working on products that can be produced and used without consuming such natural resources. For example, we try to use synthetic oils instead of natural oils. Especially in odor neutralization group products. Because everything we take from nature will come back to haunt us as zero after some time. Here too, within our R&D projects, our work continues with products that have high recyclability and could be beneficial to us and our country.

What are the technical service and support opportunities you provide to your customers?

We provide technical support in two areas. The first is that we provide the technical service of all equipment used in the laboratories or treatment equipment of which we are a distributor or regional dealer within Albar Kimya itself. We have a three-person technical team. We provide technical support after every laboratory equipment we sell and all laboratories we set up. We also have technical service for the odor neutralization equipment we produce ourselves. Technical support is the most important stage of our commitment to stand behind the work we have been doing since 1988. The matter is not only about producing and selling but about supporting the product with technical service after the sale. That is why it is a division we place great importance on. For this reason, we have a separate technical service team within our company as a separate department. The person responsible for this unit is Bünyamin. All documents and information are with him; based on this information and documents, we write our reports or conduct our calibrations ourselves.

Could you tell us about your goals for coming years? What innovations await Albar Kimya in the coming years?

In the last quarter of 2021, Metin and I had made a decision that as a company we needed to move away from being a sales, marketing and storage company and become a production company, and we discussed growing Albar Kimya horizontally rather than vertically. As a result of this horizontal growth, we separated the laboratory chemicals and equipment group that was within Albar Kimya and founded a new company called AlbarLab. This company was formally established on 3 January. It is new, but as I said, we had started our work in the Board of Directors meeting we held with Metin in the last quarter of 2021. We are continuing in line with the decision we took. In the technical chemicals field, there are many specific products coming from abroad. By meeting with companies using these products, we aim to move into production. For this, we want to produce some of it on a contract basis and some of it in our own facilities. We have made agreements for everything from the reactor to the buffer tank for this. We will also move into this production in a 3,500-square-meter enclosed area. Furthermore, our biggest goal for 2022 is to open up to foreign markets, to participate in trade fairs that are relevant to us there, to send some of our products and equipment abroad. Working with international global companies to sell these products to their foreign companies. We want to expand beyond Turkey now. Working with my children and my nephew in production is certainly a big goal, and I have not the slightest commercial concern that we will achieve this, but if you ask me what is your biggest goal, as Mehmet Albar I would say my biggest goal is to establish the Metin Albar Education Foundation. If my lifetime does not permit me to establish it, I will probably depart with my eyes open.