Miller Magazine Issue: 132 December 2020

63 INTERVIEW MILLER / december 2020 The interest in products produced from ancient seeds and wheat, whose consumption has increased rapidly in recent years, is rising. Many people who want to keep the immune system strong turned to different bakery products particularly because of the COVID-19 pandem- ic that has turned our lives upside down throughout the last year. Several flours such as quinoa, farro, einkorn, purple wheat, oats, rye and buckwheat flour attract great attention of consumers. Okurlar Food and Agriculture, which has been active in the field of pulses, rice and flour for more than 50 years, is among the companies that are not indifferent to this field. Yusuf Okur, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Okurlar Food, says that they are trying to respond to the demands by processing the an- cient seeds that have been trending in the world and the ancient kinds of wheat that have survived until today by preserving their genetics for centuries in modern stone mills with their 50 years of experience and know-how. Answering the questions of Miller Magazine, Yusuf Okur states that the ancient seed issue has been among the trending topics not only in Turkey but also all over the world for the last few years and that people now demand such additive-free products to strengthen their immune system. Hello, Mr. Okur. Could you give us information about Okurlar Food and your work for over half a century? How was your story from Samsun tracing to Edirne? Okurlar Food, Agriculture, Industry, Trade Limited Li- ability Company was established by Eşref Okur in Sam- sun in 1968 to operate in the food sector. After working many years in Samsun, he activated the rice plant in 1995 in Edirne, Uzunköprü, which is considered the center of rice production. Our company has been cultivating paddy since 2000. We carry out paddy cultivation on approxi- mately 14000 decares of land. 11000 decares of this are abroad while 3000 are within Turkey. The company has a capacity of 300 tons of paddy rice processing within 24 hours using the highest level of technology in the sector with a closed area of approximately 20000 square meters. You are a well-established company operating in the pulses industry for years. How do you assess the situation in Turkey's pulses sector? We hit the road against the industrial food products in Turkey for the first time in 2018 and since then we have been producing traditional products without using any food additives, preservatives or chemicals. In addition, as a company, we aim to produce products such as quinoa, amaranth, teff, Beluga lentil, black chickpea, black rice and buckwheat, which are among the trends of the rap- idly the changing world, in our country and make them available in wide areas to all segments of the society with an affordable price policy. Our legumes include Beluga Lentils, Mercimix, Quinoa, Black Chickpeas, Red rice, and Black rice. We are also producing bulghur varieties with these ancient and ancestral seeds. Quinoa, Farro and einkorn bulghur are among our most demanded bulghur varieties. As a company, we have ISO-9001/ISO-22000 quality certificated. Also, we have obtained the BRC certificate, which is an internationally recognized food safety docu- ment. We are quite sensitive about food safety. You are a company specialized in pulses and espe- cially rice. You have recently broken into the flour market with many different products. Can you tell us your story of flour? How is the interest in these products? Wheat and bread have been one of the most signifi- cant food sources of human being both in the past and today. These two have great cultural, social and historical value apart from nutrition. Wheat is a respected and sa- cred product due to the great value it carries. Wheat has an increasingly important role in the nutrition of people not only for Turkey but also all over the world. However, despite its great significance, it has been recently report- ed that wheat is a very harmful product that triggers dis- eases such as obesity and diabetes, and that it is a genet- ically modified organism that should not be consumed by humans as a consequence of improvement studies. Start- ing from this point, we use traditional non-genetically