PLAT Derneği Chairman of the Board of Directors Mr. İmer Özer

PLAT Association Board of Directors Chairman Sayın İmer Özer with a pleasant interview on PLAT's activities and the sector.

Sayın İmer Özer, could you tell us about yourself and your professional background?

After completing primary, secondary and high school, I graduated from Baku State University's Russian Chemistry Department. I started my career in 2003 as Product Manager at Koruma Temizlik A.Ş. Later I took on the Sales and Marketing Director position. Since 2009, I have been serving as General Manager responsible for three factories at Koruma Temizlik A.Ş. In 2014, I was elected Chairman of the PLAT Association Board of Directors and continue to hold this position. I am also a Member of the GEBKİM Foundation Board of Directors and Vice President of the Istanbul Chemical Substances and Products Exporters Association (İKMİB).

How would you define PLAT? What is the significance of the activities you have carried out as PLAT for Turkey?

Among our core objectives are representing companies operating in the rapidly growing private label products sector in our country, strengthening communication among our members, guiding sector growth, being proactive in solving sectoral issues, and creating social benefit through our projects. We currently have 165 producer and supplier members. We have companies producing across a very wide range, from food to cosmetics, from personal care products to cleaning products, and the private label products sector continues to develop with double-digit growth rates each year. Private label turnover, which was at the 30 billion TRY level in 2017, approached 50 billion TRY in 2018 with a record increase of approximately 70 percent. In the face of the economic difficulties and high inflation Turkey has been experiencing, demand for private label products increased last year, which reflected positively on the sector's turnover. We anticipate that growth in the sector will continue in 2019 and will record at least 50 percent increase. Among the factors accelerating growth in our sector, we can cite the increasing consumer confidence in private label products and rising quality perception, as well as the expansion of store numbers and sales across Turkey by discount markets such as BİM, A101, and ŞOK, which have become the main sales points for private label products in recent years. When compared with the EU, Turkey still has considerable growth potential in the private label market. We are in a promising sector position. The share of private label products in total supermarket market turnover ranges between 18 and 42 percent in Europe, measured at an average of 31.5 percent. In Turkey, this ratio has reached 19.9 percent. Therefore, significant growth opportunity exists in this area. According to latest figures, of every 5 liras spent on grocery shopping in our country, 1 lira is spent on private label products. In Europe, this figure is at one in three... We are just at the beginning, but we are growing faster compared to Europe.

As PLAT Association, implementing projects that will add value to our companies and the sector during this process is among our most important objectives. We bring the retail sector together every year at the Private Label Summit.

Last year's summit was attended by over 1,000 people from national and local retail chains as well as producers and suppliers. We expect the 5th Private Label Summit we will hold on 6 November 2019 to receive similar strong interest. Another project we attach importance to is the "Try and Learn" education project. Within the scope of the project, in just two years we opened science laboratories in a total of 12 schools located in Kocaeli, Trabzon, Şanlıurfa, Tunceli, Manisa, Aydın, Muğla, and Sakarya provinces. We continue our efforts to provide new science laboratories to schools across Turkey. Based on knowledge becoming the greatest force in production processes, we established PLAT Academy in cooperation with İzgören Akademi, one of Turkey's most established educational institutions. We successfully carried out "Perception and Relationship Management" and "Negotiation and Persuasion Skills" trainings and continue our training programs to advance the sector further. The 4th Cosmetics & Home Care Fair, to be held between 24-26 October this year, will create a unique meeting environment for the sector with its professional participant and visitor portfolio. Could you share your expectations about the fair with our readers? How would you evaluate the reflections of the Cosmetics & Home Care Fair on the sector? Cosmetics, personal care and home care products are among the product groups with the highest development potential in our chemistry sector. We can say that these are sectors with very high potential in terms of high value-added product exports, which is among our country's priority export issues.

I believe the Cosmetics & Home Care Fair will create an important meeting platform for cosmetics, personal care and cleaning products.

The fair will meet expectations this year both in terms of participant and visitor profile. It will be a productive fair that will greatly contribute to the realization of new business partnerships. Fairs play an important role in increasing exports in our chemistry sector overall. How do you think the cosmetics and home care sector will shape up in 2020? Do you have a message you would like to convey to sector professionals regarding increasing exports in this area? The cosmetics, personal care and home care sector stands out as very dynamic and rapidly growing sectors. Because these are products that make people happy and make them feel good about themselves, we see that demand does not decrease even during crisis periods. The cosmetics and personal care products sector continuously renews itself according to consumer expectations and trends. This transformation will continue in 2020 as well. In home care products, we have also observed significant increase in product variety in recent years and consumers demand these products more. Turkey has producer and exporter companies that are in a very good position in cosmetics. The number of these companies and their export volumes need to increase. I recommend that companies absolutely orient themselves toward exports and conduct research to present their products to new countries. Export opens entirely new opportunities for companies. It enables you to develop in many respects such as institutionalization, brand awareness, R&D, and product development.