The Nomad Food & Agricultural Company (NFAC) has invested in state of the art greenhouses, enabling it to create a European crop cycle for 2 months while 6-8 months for Asian crop cycle. The company produces different varieties of asparagus: Atlas, California and Apollo asparagus.
According to Founder Arman Badur, “Asparagus usually have a limited crop cycle, but because of our technology such as greenhouses for different seasons, we are able to extend the cycle and sell it during its off season.”
The company is currently expanding. Though their main market is Istanbul, Badur says, “We have recently just increased our volume of exports to the Netherlands, and just started exporting to Kuwait and Germany.”
In terms of competition, Badur doesn’t seem to be intimidated. Given its proximity to the Middle East and Europe it will have no difficulties with dealing with exporters from South America, specifically Peru. “In Turkey we don’t expect much competition from imported products. Our government placed a lot of taxes on imported products, giving us the price advantage.”
In the local market, the outlook for asparagus is very good, given that its price has recently gone up by 20% compared to last year. One kilogram of Atlas asparagus, a local variety sells for about 4-5 Euro. The asparagus has also been selling better compared to last year despite the price difference.
Badur said that asparagus should continue to do better in the coming years as a staple food product. “People are used seeing it grow in the wild, and seldom produced and cultured commercially. We've also invested heavily on marketing to promote asparagus.”
“NFAC started by selling 40 tons of asparagus last year and is now doing 180 tons. We are expecting to sell more than 200 tons next year. It helps that there is a better economic disposition for a lot of the countries in the region, meaning the end consumer has more disposable income."
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