Turkish poultry industry meets in Antalya

Late April 2012 LOHMANN TIERZUCHT and HasTavuk, Lohmann’s distributor of Lohmann Brown and LSL commercial layers in Turkey, organized the fourth edition of the bi-annual seminar for the Turkish table egg sector.


This year HasTavuk celebrated its 40th anniversary in combination with the event. The meeting was held in the prestigious International Comfort Green Palace Hotel in Antalya. Representatives of all branches of the table egg business, broiler industry and numerous officials attended the meetings. More than 550 participants, accounting for more than 80 % of the domestic table egg producers, attended this highly successful event.

Since the first seminar in Bursa in 2007 over the years, the meeting has become a highlight for exchange of ideas and updating knowledge for the Turkish table egg industry.

During the first day Matthias Voss, Robert Pottgueter and Ron Eek updated the audience on essentials of successful pullet rearing. Müjdat Sezer, senior board member of HasTavuk explained the audience the merits of LOHMANN TIERZUCHT and their breeds in combination with the outstanding organization of HasTavuk. In the afternoon session Julian Madeley, Director General of the International Egg Commission, gave an introduction on the global egg market. The day was completed by Sahin Aydemir, General Manager of HasTavuk, who emphasized the importance of creation of new markets for the Turkish egg industry, which has seen substantial growth in production capacity during recent years.

The second day of the seminar a famous Turkish speaker Ahmet Serif Izgören gave an energetic presentation about entrepreneurship and personal development, emphasizing on future generation taking over the businesses

After lively discussions the event was completed with an excellent gala dinner with life music and interesting Turkish folklore. During the party the current management and HasTavuk’s founders were honoured for their outstanding performance in interest of the Turkish poultry sector, by Mr. Dirk Wesjohann, board member of EW-Group and Prof. Dr. Rudolf Preisinger, Managing Director of LOHMANN TIERZUCHT GmbH.

Since several years Turkey is a top 10 global egg producer; egg production is higher than domestic consumption (Table 1). Many efforts by the poultry production board focus on establishment of new markets and expanding existing export activities. In order to improve domestic consumption increased consumer awareness, advertisement campaigns and branding of eggs are promoted.

In recent years the table egg production sector became more professional and upgraded their quality and capacity. Most leading egg producers have quality standards and state-of-the-art technology in line with with international standards.


Founder of HasTavuk Mr. S. Sezer (second from the right) and Mr. H. Yilmaz (5. from the right) are cutting the birthday cake together with Mr. D. Wesjohann and Prof. Dr. Preisinger
Group picture of the participants of the Antalya Seminar 2012


Table 1. Turkish table egg production – consumption

Table egg exports from Turkey focus on surrounding Middle East countries, the southern former CIS republics and GCC countries at the Persian Gulf.


Table 2: Field data commercial layers (period 18-80 weeks of age / 2010-11 / more than 100 flocks)



Table 3: More Profit with LSL

The Turkish consumer prefers medium to large sized eggs and therefore LOHMANN LSL is preferred by producers as their early egg weight shows a good increase; hardly any undersized eggs observed. The LSL shows excellent peak performances and good laying persistency (Table 2). The outstanding shell quality of both LSL and LOHMANN BROWN make them an unbeatable team in the Turkish market.

Turkey Mr. Müjdat Sezer showed that an operation with 100,000 layers can generate more than 0.5 Million Turkish Lira (TL) more profit by choosing LOHMANN LSL in their farm. Due to the better egg size LSL eggs are rated 0.01 TL more than smaller eggs of other breeds. LSL produces 12 eggs more per hen housed compared to number 2 breed in Turkey

HasTavuk was founded in 1972 in the western city of Bursa, by Mr. Ismail Hakki Yilmaz, who is still active as a board member and Mr. Sedat Sirri Sezer, whose sons Mujdat and Nejat are managing the company together with their father. The company is involved in both layer- and broiler breeder business. Since almost 25 years a close cooperation with LOHMANN TIERZUCHT has been established. 3 Times HasTavuk had been awarded ‘The World Excellence’ title for business management. They have established themselves over the years as the industry leader for layer chick supply (more than 50 % of domestic market) and expanded the activities to layer pullet business (up to 5 Mio layer pullets annually), hatching egg production and about 20 % is exported to surrounding countries.

At present the individual production facilities are spread over more than 30 separate locations. The main centers are located in Bursa (west-Turkey) and near Sivrihisar (central Anatolia), where in total they have 25 breeder farms, 2 hatcheries, 2 feed mills and 5 layer pullet sites.

LOHMANN TIERZUCHT hereby wants to congratulate HasTavuk with their 40th anniversity and we are looking forward to the coming 40 years of close cooperation and partnership!

Ron Eek, Sales Department