We Conducted an Enjoyable Interview with Murat Öztürk

A Pleasant Interview with Murat Öztürk We conducted an enjoyable conversation with Murat Öztürk, founder and CEO of Seluz Fragrance & Flavor Company, which is among the world's fastest-growing fragrance and aroma companies and has achieved export leader status for the fourth consecutive year in the 'Fragrance Chemicals Exports' category. In our pleasant chat, we learn about the company's founding story, the secrets of its success, ongoing aroma investments and unknowns regarding R&D projects…

Could you tell our readers about your background and the founding story of Seluz?

I was born in Germany in 1972. After completing my undergraduate education, I started working at a company producing fragrances in Switzerland. Later, we began importing fragrances from Europe to Turkey. During this period, I saw that Turkey would assume a more important position in the region and that Turkey needed a modern production facility meeting European standards. With our own know-how, in 2007 we converted our modest two-storey building in Hadımköy into a production area and began our first trial productions. After our small-scale trial productions succeeded, with support from our customers, we continuously increased our product range and market share. In 2010, we began construction of our modern factory with the high-technology infrastructure we had dreamed of on our own land in Silivri and completed this investment with 100 percent equity. The new 'Aroma Production & R&D' hub we invested in during recent years can be seen as the latest fruit of this belief. Our R&D, Production and Management campus in Silivri covering essence and aroma operations spans a total of 40,000 m², and we continue to grow and strengthen by making a total investment of USD 70 million to date in our complex. Alongside my role at Seluz, I continue to serve the sector as a Member of the Board of Trustees of the Istanbul Chamber of Industry and as a Board Member of İKMİB (Istanbul Chemical Substances and Products Exporters Association). I am someone who has absorbed all values representing my roots and homeland, and has embraced these values with full commitment even while living outside Turkey. On the other hand, I can say that growing up in Germany and starting my business career in Europe have contributed to work culture and discipline. I would also like to add that we have greatly benefited from combining discipline, which is very decisive in German business culture, with speed and agility nurtured by our Turkish culture.

What would you like to say about your company? What criteria form your success policy?

Thanks to our perfectionist and customer-focused philosophy and work commitment, we have managed to become one of the world's fastest-growing fragrance and aroma companies despite our young age. Since our founding, our vision focused on 'global growth' and 'value-added products' where creativity is indispensable continues to expand our investments in qualified human resources and high technology year after year. The most fundamental criterion forming Seluz's success is monitoring global market trends closely in the core categories that make up our sector, anticipating customer needs, and being more than just a supplier to our customers—acting as a solution partner; being the locomotive of the industry with our contribution to innovation and development. I believe many of our customers are convinced that in their business relationship with Seluz, our company utilizes all its R&D and solution resources to the fullest, and sincerity and mutual trust form the foundation of our customer relationships.

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

Drawing inspiration from life's most special moments and nature's unique richness, we combine our creativity with technology to bring the most special scents and flavors to life. We can say our solutions in the fragrance field are used in all sub-group products of three main categories. The first of these is the "fine fragrance" category, namely perfumes, which forms the locomotive of our business. The second main category is the personal care segment comprising many sub-groups such as hair care, skin care, baby care and wet wipes. Finally, we can mention the home care category with segmentation such as detergents, surface cleaners and room fragrances. These essentially form the main application areas of our fragrances. However, with developing technology, we can say innovative usage areas for fragrances have emerged in many new fields ranging from textiles to chemicals. In the aroma sector, I can say we are present in food categories that occupy every point of our lives. While there are many sub-categories in this sector, we can list the most important application areas of the aromas we have developed as follows; under the beverage category: hot beverages like tea and coffee, carbonated beverages, iced tea and cold coffee, fruit beverages, nectar, syrups, energy drinks, malt beverages; under the confectionery category: hard and soft candies, fudge and chocolate; under the dairy products main category: pudding, ice cream, milk beverages, milk-based desserts, fruit yogurt and kefir; under the bakery products category: biscuits, cakes, waffles, croissants and cookies.

Last year was a year when pandemic effects were felt intensely and these effects are continuing. How was your company affected by this situation?

The COVID-19 pandemic is said to be the greatest global health and economic disaster humanity has faced since World War II. The years 2020 and 2021 were difficult periods for the entire world both socially, humanely and economically. Although the pandemic's effects continue to some extent today, it is gratifying that the situation is progressing positively. While the global economy and international trade went through a challenging process in the shadow of the pandemic in 2021, the Turkish chemical sector became Turkey's second most exporting sector with USD 25.4 billion in exports. In the first wave of the pandemic, although the lengthy closures of many factories in many countries where we export in the perfume field—our most value-added business area—negatively affected our targets, we experienced an upward effect from fragrances used in cleaning and hygiene products due to increased production in these categories, and we maintained our export leadership in the fragrance field in 2020 and 2021 as well, and we are proud to be the export leader for four consecutive years. In the food aroma field, where we had started investments previously, despite the pandemic conditions, our R&D and production technology investments continued. We increased our workforce, a large portion of which is our research and development department, and I would like to emphasize that this is also a significant investment. Although the outbreak deeply affected many sectors, we saw that there was no serious market contraction in packaged food production and sales in particular, and in fact there was significant growth in some sub-categories. We are pleased to have achieved the targets we had projected in aroma production and sales.

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

As Turkish companies, when shaping sector strategies in both aroma and fragrance, I always emphasize the great importance of Research and Development work that will increase competitive strength on a global scale and create added value for our national economy, and that investment should be made in this area. I believe that creativity, design value and all innovation efforts will further elevate the added value produced by sectors and our competitive strength relative to other countries. For this reason, R&D occupies a very critical place for us, and we continue to make continuous investments in both technology and our employees to develop and be the best. Thanks to the investments we have made so far, we own laboratories that are rarely seen in the world. As of 2017, our Research and Development facilities gained the legal status of an R&D center from the Republic of Turkey Ministry of Science, Industry and Technology, which monitors and supports our innovation projects. This was both a source of pride for us and provided motivation and an opportunity to accelerate our R&D activities further. In light of global and regional trends and taking customer needs into consideration, we continue to develop new formulas and applications with them. I would also like to note that we employ 60 percent of all our human resources in our R&D center. We have 18 active R&D projects, some in aroma and some in fragrance. To give the main titles of a few: our Horizon 2020, Functionalized Tomato Products project. This project has a total of 16 partners from different countries. One of the 5 Turkish partners is us. We are taking part in the work package where the sensory analyses of the project will be carried out. We also have our ongoing nationally-supported TAGEM project; production of plant protein isolates from industrial by-products and the use of these isolates in soft candy production at pilot and industrial scales. We are also conducting this project jointly with our university and business partners. Other projects that excite us include: development of gum base with desired properties using different gum yeasts and examination of turmeric powder-turmeric aroma profiles and functional properties in the gum; development of pectin-based soft candy formula and process with plant protein added; development of immune-supporting mineral water with flavoring containing vitamins ACDE.

What is your company's perspective on technology?

Working with the latest technology and manufacturing is very important for us to maintain the perfectionist approach we have adopted and to obtain reliable results. Having modern facilities with high-technology infrastructure is one of the most important reasons why companies from many parts of the world choose us as a business partner. We established Seluz as Turkey and the Middle East's first fully integrated robotic fragrance production facility in 2011 and continue to invest in continuously evolving technology and follow innovations. In our fragrance production hub dominated by the latest technology in every area and supported by highly automated robots, the unique components offered by nature and science are blended through fully automatic and integrated processes. Our flexible and large-scale production robots and tanks provide the capability to rapidly produce and ship customer requirements ranging from 25 kg to 5 tons. Our aroma production and R&D center features production lines containing the latest known technologies in the world where we can produce liquid and powder aromas without manual handling in a short time. As Turkey's first and only company capable of performing automatic dosing from 0.05 grams to 5 tons on fully automated robotic lines, we differentiate ourselves from our competitors in terms of technology as well. While some of these technologies are of European origin, we have developed an important portion of them in Turkey. Among these are proud examples like our giant spray drying tower that we developed together with Turkish business partners and Turkish mechanical engineers in Turkey.

If your company has initiated or pioneered any corporate social responsibility projects, could you provide us with information about them?

As one of the pioneering companies continuing to grow and develop in Turkey, we have always cared about and supported corporate social responsibility projects. Although in our company culture we are not inclined to share corporate social responsibility projects widely or on social media, let me briefly tell you about a few. Under our "Drink Healthy Water, Protect Nature" project, we initiated a new era of drinking our water in glass bottles to consume water in a nature-friendly and healthier way. With Seluz glass bottles we gave as gifts to our employees, we drink our water and work with our employees against plastic pollution for our future. I would also like to share that a donation is made to LÖSEV for each glass bottle. In a previous period, through a corporate social responsibility project launched under the coordination of the PLAT (Specialized Branded Products Manufacturers and Suppliers) Association, we established Science Laboratories in a total of 8 primary schools, initially in 5 and later in 3. Through our project realized with teachers and trainees at the Yozgat Çayıralan Public Education Center, to support women's labor and revive a disappearing craft, we produced 18 of Anatolia's endemic plants using traditional silk needle embroidery and created the Seluz "Turkey's Endemics" library containing endemic research compiled from around the world. This library is open to all academic research purposes. In the early months of the pandemic, which required much greater social awareness and responsibility, we procured significant amounts of masks and cleaning products, basic necessities, whether or not they entered our production area, and provided them free of charge to public institutions and households in nearby settlements. Within this scope, along with many cleaning and relief materials, 30 tons of disinfectant was also produced by Seluz and delivered free of charge to points of need. We continue to carry out many corporate social responsibility projects affecting people, the environment and society, acting with social responsibility awareness as one of our core principles and pursuing our activities in this direction. Could you tell us about your goals for coming years? What innovations await your company in the coming years? There is a point we emphasized in the founding motivation of Seluz Flavor: we are a company that believes in Turkey's strength. As our Republic enters its 100th year, we have the goal of becoming one of the world's leading fragrance and aroma companies. Considering that among these companies in the world are those founded in the 1800s and have captured the cornerstones of the game, we can say this is an important achievement. Our vision and dynamic approach have made us one of the world's fastest-growing fragrance and aroma companies. To succeed in our goal, we need to grow twice as much, and we continue to invest in our work and employees without slowing down. The second phase work on our food aroma R&D and production hub, the first phase of which is completed, is ongoing and will be completed in 2022. We aim to close 2022 with 30 percent growth level and a turnover of USD 85 million. In 2023, we have a total turnover target of USD 100 million, with USD 80 million from the fragrance sector and USD 20 million from the aroma sector. In this competitive environment of industrial fragrance and aroma sectors, we have no doubt that we will achieve this target with our team spirit without compromising our working principles and our passion for our work.