“Since NASA’s establishment, the company, with the understanding of quality product and service, has become the key supplier for many operations related to flour, feed, pasta, sugar, seed and pulse in Turkey. We are closely monitoring the changes in the sector and the machines in order to maintain this confidence and service quality. We pay attention to all products so that they can meet ‘food-compatibility’ condition that has become prominent in the world.

Ahmet ESKİYAPAN - NASA Food Industry and Trade Inc, Deputy CEO

Nurullah Eskiyapan, who completed his education as a mill engineer in Germany, has founded the NASA in 1980 in order to supply spare parts to flour and feed factories. Having agencies in Turkey and abroad, the company attracted attention as it took firm steps forward. The company is expert in cleaning, sifting, filtration and packaging; the company also provides technical service and product supply. Ahmet Eskiyapan, Deputy CEO of NASA Food Industry and Trade Inc., spoke with the Miller Magazine to tell the company’s area of activity and its targets.

Can you tell us about the company’s story, mission and vision and its area of activities? Nurullah Eskiyapan has founded the company in Ankara on 1980. After completed the mill engineering at Braunschweig Müller Schule, he returned Turkey and worked in the pasta sector. When he decided to establish his factory in 1980, he realized problems and deficiencies in acquiring of spare parts. Then as NASA, he started to provide technical expertise to new-comers and products to existing companies. We continue on the mission, which is to provide the best quality product and service within minimum time that we embraced at the beginning. Our vision is to develop the best quality products to milling sector whose needs has changed with technology despite its main foundation has been long-established and to provide these products by emphasizing the customer’s satisfaction.

Can you tell us about the product range and technical service? We have office and storage that cover 1,500 square meters in central Ankara. NASA supplies machine consumables to companies, active at flour, pasta, feed, pulse and seed growing, in which they use at their processes. Also, the company provides wide-ranging service to companies that manufacture machines to these sectors. Until the end of 1990s, we provided service as strong and trustable bridge between the final user and producers. With changing commercial understanding and easy-access to information, we limited our production range and weighted upon areas we feel stronger. Thus, in the beginning of 2000, we shaped our production range accordingly, and we weighted upon five areas: cleaning, handling, sifting, filtration and packaging. We provide service to the sector on co-produced plastic and pressed plate bucket along with any kind of pipe, spiral, plate and belt on handling and wheat cleaning.

NASA also represents important foreign companies. Can you tell us about these partnerships? Another important area for the company is sifting and filtration. We started cooperation with Swiss-based Sefar AG, the number one company in separation of sifted flour in micron, in 1990s, and we became the authorized importer in 2001 and in 2007, we became its distributor in Turkey. Today, we continue our activities in Turkey as the sole distributor of Sefor Nytal Milling products. Within this scope, thus we procure products to customers, and also we provide usage information and technical support so that our customers can fully utilize from these valuable imported products. The quality of nylon cleaners that are used in the flour sifting are just as important as cleaners’ production being used to enhance these nylon cleaner’s performance. The most known production among these is cotton cleaner that our sister company, Tapeten Textile founded in 1983, started producing. Now, this company produces any kind of plansifter parts and filter bags, ranging from glass fiber hanger rods, new generation brush plastic cleaner and sifter bugs in 10,000 square meters factor in Ankara.

You also supply service in packaging… Yes, we are also active in industrial packaging. In this area, NASA represents USA-based Fischbein sewing machines. Additionally, we sell and do marketing of recently developed paper filters, resistant to burst and tearing, and industrial sewing thread. These are produced by our sister company Tapeten Textile.

Do you prioritize domestic or foreign markets? Is there any target country? In Turkey, We sell our products directly or our agents in cities around Turkey according to our customer’s preference. In abroad, we provide service through our agents in Italy, Switzerland, Balkan countries, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Georgia, North and South America and North African countries.

Can you tell us about your company’s share and role in the sector? Since NASA’s establishment, the company, with the understanding of quality product and service, has become the key supplier for many operations related to flour, feed, pasta, sugar, seed and pulse in Turkey. We are grateful for this trust. We are closely monitoring the changes in the sector and the machines in order to maintain this confidence and service quality. We pay attention to all products so that they can meet ‘food-compatibility’ condition that has become prominent in the world and Turkey at the pasta and flour sector. For this reason, we carefully perform food-compatibility documentation from plansifter cotton cleaner to adhesive and from polyurethane plansifter cleaner to paper bags.

Which foreign markets make you excited as a promising market? Together with aging population, the machine sector will shrink in European market; but, I think that African continent has big potential for our sector. Moreover, I observe that there has been ongoing investment and renewal in countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, and India. I think that these investments will have positive feedback to machine-producer companies in our sector.