Aykut Coşkun, TECO Dryer: “The conditions required for the healthy storage of agricultural products are provided by drying machines. Dried products by primitive techniques are a serious threat to human health and economy. The method of making money within the sector is providing healthy and homogenous drying techniques. TECO has developed dryers with low energy requirement without ignoring environmental conscience. We do not imagine, we do!”

Meeting food demand of an increasing population remains a major global concern. Reducing postharvest losses presents a sustainable solution to increasing food availability. Grains are the main staple food in most of the developing nations and account for the maximum postharvest losses on a calorific basis among all agricultural commodities. As much as 50%–60% of grains can be lost during the storage stage.

For this issue, we interviewed with Aykut Coşkun, CEO of TECO Dryer, which operates in grain drying and storage systems. Underlining the importance of drying for offering healthy products to the consumer, “Our main focal point is providing healthy products to consumers. The first condition for this is reducing the amount of excess water in the harvested products and preventing the formation of harmful bacteria and fungi. Therefore, it is more reasonable to store the products after the drying process.” he warns.

To begin with, could you tell us about TECO Dryer and its activities? TECO Dryer which was established in 2007 in Adana, has been working on grain dryer machines sector. Our company has developed dryers with low energy requirement without ignoring environmental conscience.

By using enhanced design and production technologies in the grain drying industry, our company has embraced the notion of improving customer satisfaction constantly as it’s quality policy by adopting producing high quality service and investing in qualified personnel as main principle.

The products we are able to dry are wheat, paddy, corn, barley, canola, soy bean, sunflower seeds, white beans, chickpeas, lentils, nuts, pistachios, walnuts, coffee and cocoa beans.

Our sector is known as Grain Drying and Storage. We have been in the sector since 2008 and known with “TECO” brand throughout the world. We have gained 387 turn-key facilities to the sector so far.

Could you please tell us the latest technologies you created? Our latest machine, a successful product of our work; ‘Pistachio and Nuts Draining Machine’ has been developed as the result of 20 years of experience and approximately 24 months-long R&D efforts. This machine drains high-profile products such as pistachio and nuts in a qualified and healthy way without affecting the tastes and without adding any kind of aroma to the products.

It is a machine which drys directly consumed high quality food commodities by lower costs with confidence. Especially in terms of pistachio and nut, this machine has the first industrial drying technology with its different working principle than other machines so far. It is the only machine which has the technology of drying partial products according to incoming product amount.

Is there any similar machines like yours? Our machine has a special place around the world, there are not any resemblance in the world. It has a hybrid design and it can dry products from the manufacturer in pieces (500-1500kg). It is unique throughout the world, especially in terms of design and functionality.

How do you do the pistachio drying procedure in only 1 hour which normally takes 3 days? For the time being, product gathered from the field is being sprawled out and dryed in a way that threatens public health. Under right climate conditions, drying procedure can be completed within 3 days. Throughout this time, workers turn around the product in certain periods under the sun.In the current method, 96 workers required to work in a 44185 m2 space, whereas our machine requires 150 m2 space, 2 operators and only 6 workers.

What is the effect of the drying procedure conducted via your machine on the quality of the pistachio? Aflatoxin usually starts to emerge before harvest. If drying procedure gets delayed and if the critical conditions for mold production such as humidity, heat etc. breached during storage, contamination emerges after harvesting. The highest risk group for aflatoxin contamination is food commodities of corn, pistachio and greasy seeds. Thanks to our machine, 3 day-long drying procedure is decreased to only 1 hour and production of aflatoxin is stopped.

How many tons of product can be dried per hour? Capacity for each model varies from 1.5 to 5 tons per hour. Therefore, 36-120 tons of product can be dried per day based on the model.

When comparing to previous methods, what kinds of advantages doee your technological method has? Any product without aflatoxin always gets higher demand and finds costumers at top prices. The spreaded product in the field is a serious threat in terms of hiygene. With the lowest-capacity machine drys 36 tons a day and it gives us the chance to dry 108 tons of product in 3 days.

In the current system, 44185 m2 wide concrete space is needed for drying 36 tons of product. With its current market value, this concrete field has 1.423.000 TL cost. While the cost of our machine is 467.000 TL. Its energy consumption is 23kW, fuel consumption is 78 TL per ton.

Are there some priority regions that you see as a target market and focus on? Thanks to this machine, we arranged a meeting for Turkish and Chinese exporters and prompted a Chinese company to investment in Nizip, Gaziantep. Besides, we have already contacted many vendors across the globe in order to promote the sales. In particularly, we are in touch with producers in USA, Iran, Spain, India, Greece and the countries on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea where pistachio market is leading.

What are you doing to widen the usage of your product? Our main focal point is providing healthy products to consumers. The first condition for this is reducing the amount of excess water in the harvested products and preventing the formation of harmful bacteria and fungi. Therefore, it is more reasonable to store the products after drying process.

Is there anything else you would like to communicate to our readers? The conditions required for the healthy storage of agricultural products are provided by drying machines. This is the key provision for achieving a balance in terms of earnings and health. Dried products by primitive techniques are a serious threat to human health and economy. The method of making money within the sector is providing healthy and homogenous drying techniques.

We do not imagine, we do!