Nestle invests $55 mln in breakfast cereal in Turkey

Swiss chocolate brand Nestle, which has been active in Turkey for more than a century, announced Thursday that it will open an 85-million-Turkish Lira factory in Karacabey in the northeastern province of Bursa to produce breakfast cereal.

"Turkey is a good location to export [goods] to the Middle East and North Africa,” said Hans-Ulrich Mayer, Nestle Turkey’s executive board chairman, during an Istanbul meeting to present the new investment.

The company made a choice among Turkey, Russia and Poland for the location of the facility, he said.

Speaking at the meeting, Industry and Trade Minister Nihat Ergun said Nestle showed its confidence in economic stability in Turkey.

The facility would provide jobs for 160 people in the first phase, he said.

Ergun said the country had attracted $92 billion in foreign investment between 2003 and 2010.

The plant will be the company’s 15th cereal production factory in the world, Mayer said.

It is planned to meet the total domestic demand for Nestle’s cereal products, he said. “We will make all its production with raw materials from Turkey.”

The construction for the plant started in August 2009 and it is planned to open in the second half of 2011, he said.

Nestle Turkey acquired 51% of Doğan ve Balaban Gıda, a Sakarya-based chocolate, biscuit and confectionery company, earlier in December.

The company, which produces various biscuits, chocolates and wafers, also holds the Toto brand, the sales champion of the egg chocolate market, totaling 50 million Turkish Liras.


/Hurriyet Daily News/