Interview with Ceyhun Zincirkıran, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Sapro

We conducted an extensive interview with Sapro Board Chairman Ceyhun Zincirkıran in this issue of our publication. Mr. Zincirkıran told us about the sectors the company serves, its R&D efforts, and developments during the pandemic period. Enjoy your reading.

Would you tell our readers about yourself and your background?

I was born in Ankara in 1959. I completed my secondary education at Saint-Michel French High School. After graduating from Istanbul University's Faculty of Economics, I completed my MBA at Marymount College of Virginia. I began my career at Erpeks Foreign Trade Inc. Since 1988, I have served as founding partner and board chairman at Tetra Inc., Sapro Inc., Multipak Inc., and Lotus Inc.

Could you provide information about the sectors you serve and your product range?

Sapro was established in 1997 to manufacture wet wipes. At our facilities in Istanbul-Silivri, with a workforce of approximately 850 people, we operate private label production. We are Turkey's largest and Europe's 4th largest wet wipe manufacturer. We are an export-oriented company, but due to significant domestic demand, since 2000 we have also begun producing for the domestic market for Turkey's major retail companies and brands. We manufacture a wide range of products including baby and personal care, household cleaning, vehicle maintenance, patient care, pet care, industrial-use products, as well as hand and surface disinfectant wipes and antibacterial wipes. Last year was a year when pandemic effects were felt intensely, and these effects continue to this day. How was your company affected by this situation and what measures did you take? The COVID-19 outbreak was a process that suddenly affected the entire world and caught almost all sectors unprepared. With the outbreak, the priority in our lives became protecting our hygiene and personal care. This also brought significant movement to the sector. While demand in some sectors came to a standstill with the pandemic, in the wet wipe sector it reached high figures. Since March 2020, we have experienced a 50% increase in demand for our products. As Sapro, we currently ship wet wipes to over 70 countries. During the pandemic period, this number did not decrease; in fact, we could say it increased. Our primary foreign market is Europe. Our biggest target is the American continent. Beyond this, we can mention Asia and the Middle East. To meet the intense demand, we made machinery investments from both domestic and foreign sources in a way that would increase our capacity by 30-35%. Additionally, we made new production line investments to our Lotus company to strengthen our spunlace production. At the beginning of 2021, we opened our factory in Bulgaria. This will be our "gateway to Europe." We consider this factory very important both because it is close to our Silivri facilities and because it will accelerate shipments abroad, particularly to the Balkans. Here we aim to produce 45 million packs of wet wipes annually. Additionally, of course, we will make a significant contribution to employment. We not only produce wet wipes; at our Tetra Factory we produce cartons and display materials, at our Multipak factory we produce plastics, and at our Lotus Technical factory we produce nonwoven fabric, which is the raw material for wet wipes. One reason for our growth during the pandemic is the vertical integration we established within our group of companies. In this way, we did not experience major disruptions in the material supply chain during our growth.

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

As Turkey's largest wet wipe manufacturer, we meet consumer needs with our innovative products. As an R&D-based company, we allocate approximately 2% of our investments to R&D and test each product in our accredited microbiology laboratory within our company, which has international ISO 17025 standards. Together with a 27-member team of microbiologists, chemists, and chemical engineers employed by us with graduate and undergraduate degrees, working in our R&D, Product Development, microbiology laboratory, and analysis laboratories, we conduct R&D work meticulously. Within the scope of these efforts, alongside standard products, we continue to grow in the global market by developing environment and eco-friendly products for a changing world.

Which production technologies does your company prefer and what is the importance of technological progress and digital transformation for you?

With the pandemic, we prioritized our digital transformation initiative and completed Industry 3.0 through robotization activities in our production and operation processes, accelerating our digitalization projects across all processes within the scope of Industry 4.0. Since we are an export-oriented company, we began our digitalization efforts from our sales processes. The goal is to manage all processes from order receipt to delivery through a completely automation-based system independent of individuals. Additionally, together with the digitalization project, we plan to invest USD 2 million to establish an intelligent warehouse system.

What measures have you taken while manufacturing for a more sustainable world? In this context, how would you define Sapro's perspective on sustainability?

The pandemic actually demonstrated not only the importance of hygiene but also how precious human life is. Here we understood the value of clean air and nature more deeply. As a company that has dedicated years to this sector, we aim not only to produce wet wipes but to create a world that we will leave to our children where living areas are livable. Within this framework, taking a major step toward sustainable eco-friendly products, in November 2020 we obtained a EUR 21 million investment credit for biodegradable wet wipe production. With funds provided through a joint initiative of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Turkey's Industrial Development Bank, we will carry out necessary state-of-the-art machinery and infrastructure investments for the production of biologically degradable, nature-friendly, sustainability-supporting wet wipes.

Does your company have any social responsibility project that it has initiated or pioneered? If so, could you provide us with information about them?

We partnered on a social responsibility project with Turmepa and the Sea Clean Association, leading civil society organizations in Turkey that undertake activities on environmental sensitivity. Together with our employees, we conducted coastal cleaning in the Silivri region to draw attention to environmental cleanliness. We will have new projects in the coming period. At the same time, we began publishing our Sustainability Report starting from 2019.