Interview with Mr. Halil Kullemci
In the interview we held, Mr. Halil Kullemci, General Manager of Biobellinda, answered our questions. Telling the success story of Biobellinda, Kullemci also gave information about the company’s products.
Could you please briefly tell our readers about yourself, your education, and your career?
I come from a family of three children, including myself. We were born into BioBellinda. I’ve held various positions in almost all of its departments. I’m now the General Manager of Biobellinda and I am backed by an awesome team.
Could you please tell us about how BioBellinda was founded, and how it’s evolved? Which sectors do you cater to? What do you make?
We’re the only company in Turkey that sells its own products through Network Marketing and we have been doing this for over 25 years – that’s the key to our success. We’re one of the most recommended brands by Turkish women because of our products and business model.
We also are the first Turkish company to make all of its own goods domestically for the past 10 years. We export to over 35 counties across Europe, as well as to the U.K. and North America. We have one goal: To offer women equal opportunities as men because they deserve it.
We firmly believe that women can be active in business without needing diplomas, technical training, or knowing working capital, and they can do this without neglecting their families and private lives.
The BioBellinda logo likewise symbolizes equality. For over a quarter of a century, we’ve been working hard to transform Turkey’s housewives into strong businesswomen and entrepreneurs.
The world is evolving leaps and bounds. To keep up with that, we’re developing new technology and products to help women earn their own money without having to leave home, and regardless of country borders or having to be confined to one part of the world only.
Skincare products, food supplements, household and general cleaning products, halal-certified oral care products, perfumes and ammonia-free hair dyes are among our product group.
What makes your company stand out? Are you involved in any social responsibility projects? What is the reflection of these studies on your employees, your brand, and your sense of responsibility?
Our customers like us for many reasons. We offer reliable and high-quality products alongside special services for our entrepreneurs. We also are prompt when it comes to shipping, we use digital technology that benefits people, and we employ a fair and profitable earning plan. In short, our vision considers women and nature in the first place.
We moreover center our business and everything it does around sustainability. That is to say, we’re well aware that Earth’s resources are limited and precious. We’ve also designed all of our factories eco-friendly. We don’t produce any waste, don’t use chimneys, and we rely on natural raw materials from renewable resources.
Similarly, all of our products are self-degradable and vegan products, and we both track our carbon footprint as well as always use energy-saving technology.
Our biggest social responsibility is to protect the environment and leave behind a cleaner world for our grandchildren.
The ingredients we use reflect that. We make eco-friendly products only for the whole BioBellinda family. I would like to remind you that BioBellinda was selected as the Best Network Company of the Year at the 3rd Turkey Leading Brand Ceremony held on August 15th.
How have increased costs impacted your sector? How did this year’s first quarter go for you? Have you introduced anything new this year, so far? Could you please tell about your successes?
As in the whole world, a lot has changed and continues to change during and after the pandemic period, which we started to experience in 2020.
Along with the world economy, we were affected by the shrinkage in the country’s economy as much as our stakeholders in all other sectors, but as Biobellinda, I have full faith that we will come out of this process as learned and strengthened thanks to our dynamism and ability to adapt quickly to changes.
As we have experienced in previous crisis periods, the FMCG sector is one of the sectors that adapts most easily to economic contractions. We are trying to continue to grow by revising our 2022 growth targets according to the current economic conditions and investing in our brand.
There will be innovations that will bring new perspectives to the understanding of Network Marketing. We will watch it together. In the first and second quarters of 2022, France was defined as the leader for our market in Europe.
Last year, we launched ProBio+, a household cleaning product that employs new technology and has the power to change how we approach hygiene. In doing so, we vow to protect the balance of the microcosm and do what we can to take protecting both the environment and human health one step further.
We’re delighted to present that to all our customers. This makes us very satisfied. ProBio+ has a goal beyond environmental friendliness: “A living cleaning product committed to making the world a better place for you”.
BioBellinda takes its sensitivity to the environment and human health one step further and volunteers to preserve the balance of the microcosm we live in and shares this with our valued customers, thanks to its revolutionary new product.
The skin and mucosal surfaces that cover the human body from the outside separate us from the approximately 100 trillion microorganisms. Which are hosts in different parts of our body, and this means 10 microorganisms for each human cell.
The body, which is almost sterile until the moment of birth, encounters its first hosts during birth, and this beginning contributes to the determination of both our physical and spiritual identity in various aspects for the rest of life.
This cocktail of microorganisms, which seriously affects our quality of life, is called the “microbiome”, and our microbiome is affected by internal factors such as our diet and sleep patterns, as well as the external environments we live in. The purpose of ProBio+ is to ‘improve’ this environment in which we live.
ProBio+ has been tested in studies against chemical cleaners and disinfectants and has proven to show long-term superiority in combating microbiological impurities. And without killing the useful ones.
How important is R&D for your company? Could you please tell us about the R&D projects that you have been working on recently?
With its professional team, our group company Berre Kimya has adopted the vision of producing world-class product varieties in its modern facilities, keeping the environment and human health at the forefront, constantly improving the quality management system, and supporting our country’s current account deficit with domestic production and reducing our dependence on foreign sources.
In this direction, it successfully continues its activities in different sectors such as food, caravan, cosmetic-cleaning products, enzyme, and micellar production in different production facilities established with its own capital.
As Berre Kimya, we set out in 2013 to fill our country’s lack of domestic and high-quality biotechnological products, as we believe that one of the most important needs in closing the current account deficit in our country is the ability to produce high-tech products.
In this sense, we have developed R&D Projects to produce high-tech products together with state institutions such as KOSGEB and TUBITAK.
We work only with experts in the respective fields. We’re currently working on developing biotechnological enzymes. We’ve also set up a number of microbiology and fermentation labs and fitted them with state- of-the-art technology.
Five years into things, we’re now producing cultures that are naturally sourced, GMO-free, domestic, durable, pure, and of superior – namely mushroom micelle. They are ideal for Turkey’s current manufacturing continues. Research is continuing at full speed.
Could you please tell us about your goals for the next years? What innovations await your company in the coming years?
We want to export our goods to over 40 [more] countries, as well as set up shop in to new and distant markets, and likewise localize our products and our earning system accordingly. To help us achieve that, we also want to form more business partnerships and expand our product range.
