Location : Urla, İzmir - Turkey
Application : Olive Oil Extraction
Operating Machines :
1 piece of OLIVE 200
Interviewee : Kübra ÖZMEN (Owner)
Interviewer : Evren EKŞİ
In its first harvest year, HAYAL BAHÇE’DEN was awarded with “Bronze Award” at “London International Olive Oil Competition” in health claim category, which was held in London, the capital city of England and Gold Medal at “11th National Natural Extra Virgin Olive Oil Quality Competition” organized by Zeytindostu Derneği (Olive Friendly Association).
Let us know about you and your company:
I was born in 1991 in İstanbul. After I had completed my graduate degree as an interior architect, I started my professional career. The story began after my family bought an olive grove in Urla in 2015. I decided to create a brand to make everyone reach our products from our olive oil trees at our garden. It was after this decision that I did my master’s degree on marketing communications to create a brand and know how to manage it in conscious. My first step was to create a name for branding. After that I gradually started to create brand strategies. While giving a name to our brand, I thought how we had started the journey. In fact, it was my father’s dream to have an olive garden. Thus, I named the olive grove as “Hayal Bahçe” (Dream Garden). Since all our products are come out of the olive trees at our garden, I named the brand as “Hayal Bahçe’den”(from Dream Garden). It was in October 2017 that we harvested for the first time. We put them in bottles. We now sell from our garden and our internet site. Very soon, we will be selling our products from an “Hayal Bahçe’den” office in Urla Malgaca Market.
How did you meet HAUS?
We not only wanted to have a garden but also a plant where we could get quality products. Following the searches, when we asked “Who is the best company in doing this?”, we received the answer “HAUS”. The interest of the company representatives and confidential products convinced us to choose HAUS. Now we have 5 tonnes/day capacity plant, in case of our needs in future we would like to grow together with HAUS.
Why HAUS?
Honestly, the way you welcome us, your sincerity, your way of performing your job professionally is effective. Within our specified project, you guided us very well through placing what, where and how. You did not only sell the machine but also provided us with its placement, its installation and technical support. You did not leave us alone in the harvest season. We receive all support and service from you and know that we will.
How do you work to have a brand name of an award-winning olive oil?
We are trying to do this job in the best conditions and receiving training for this. First, we built our plant according to food plant procedure. We have our garden looked after regularly. Every week, regular controls are carried out and a report is written by our agriculture engineer. We have a proper harvest by hand and we try not to drop them to the ground. We try to process the olives we have collected in the same day, in a very short time of nearly 4-5 hours. We process them immediately and with the help of gravity put them into our vertical chrome tanks without filtration. We keep them in an 18 C° room, which does not receive light. After all, if you produce and store in these conditions, you already produce world-class olive oil. I think such olive oil deserve to participate all national and international competitions.
After 2018 harvest, we will be a candidate for a lot of competitions. We hope to receive satisfactory results.
How does a competition process pass?How do you act during and after the application process?
There are many competitions in national and international platforms. Those competitions have different categories in them. “Zeytindostu” (Olive Friendly Association) makes an announcement for the competition they organize within the year, then the brands apply it and participates with no label samples. Dear Ms. Birsen Pehlivan, food engineer msc and international olive oil quality competitions jury, supports the brands who would like to participate international competitions. We participated with her guidance as well. We participated with our 0.37 acid extra virgin olive oil to the both competitions. It was very important for us to receive both national and international awards in our first year, it was a good start.
What is HAUS’ role in good quality olive oil production?
Production of olive oil is made by machines, that’s why the machine has a great role. We would not have been able to process both our olives and the external ones effectively if we had experienced problems about technical issues, temperatures to be regulated, duration, its efficiency or transfer. We processed olives for other produces around Urla since there is not enough plant in the territory. It’s because of the efficient working of HAUS machines along with the plant. If there had been a defect in the machine or if we had experienced a problem in any process, it would have affected us badly.
Where would you like to see Hayal Bahçe’den brand in the future?
I foresee a controlled growth for Hayal Bahçe’den. I do this job as a hobby apart from commercial concern. For this reason I am very careful and I am trying to take the right steps. It is a sign that our olive oil is awarded in the competitions we attended in the first year. I want to have a more productive season each year and produce with increasing quality both in olives and olive oil. My goal is to be successful in the competitions that I will attend in the coming years. At this stage we have the idea of increase our plant capacity. The demand we saw last year at our plant made us happy; we set up a regular system where we work with an appointment not to keep the olives waiting and to do our regular cleaning every day. In fact, the olive farmers who took advantage of our facilities last year, receive their appointments earlier this year. We want our plant to continue serving studiously for the olive market around Urla. We are currently deliberate about selling our brand at chain stores. Even some good quality olive oil sold on the market shelves can be oxidized due to storage conditions. So, despite the proposals we are currently not selling at this stage. We can think of it if there is a place where we believe that the circulation is too much, and the storage conditions are correct. Apart from producing quality products and supporting the production of other olive crops, we want to increase our brand awareness and sales in parallel. But our primary goals are; to continue to produce quality products, to guide the other businesses in terms of quality and raise the awareness of consumers to consume good quality olive products.
How is your harvest time?
We have two harvest times at Hayal Bahçe’den: early and mature harvest. We have facilities for transfer and crating.After collecting and crating the olives, we immediately send them to our plant. We never use sacks for that. We warn the ones who want to carry through sacks and send them our crates if they do not have them. In about six hours we end the process and take them into waiting tanks, and then we send them to their own tanks. Early harvest is kept in a tank while mature harvest is kept in another. We also have bottling and capping facilities within our organization. 2017 was our first harvest year. We started on the 3. week of October as an early harvest. We went from İstanbul to Urla with our close friends and family. At the same time, with the participation of our friends we made in Urla in two years, we had a . As is the custom, we served them Turkish lokma. We had planned it as an event among us in which we could have a barbecue and eat and drink, but the participation was high above our expectations and they did not leave us alone. HAUS representatives were there as well. They supported us for the first application, taught our team all the technical details. That way it was a good harvest start. We want to turn this into a traditional event.
What is within your product range?
We have early and mature harvest extra virgin olive oil, olive oil soap and black olives. We will have table green olives this year as well. Customers who want to try our products can order from www.hayalbahceden.com website. According to the orders, we prepare and ship the product at the same date.
What would you like to advise to those who will start this job or who make their productions through traditional methods?
First, they should certainly receive the necessary training. As it is mentioned in those trainings, it is not possible to produce quality and good olive oil through traditional methods. Today, it’s better to make production in continuous system. In this point, not only the machine but also the process from ground to bottle should be controlled. Cultivation and storage as well as production are influencing factors to have a quality product. Lot of common knowledge till today is now considered false as a result of researches. I am more selective in the olive oils I consume after the training I have received. Before consuming, I smell it first, if possible I taste it and I consume it if I find good quality. Because I know the damages of poor quality olive oil in the body and the benefits of quality extra virgin olive oil. After the trainings and experiences I have gained, I decided to make my own determination and move away from the traditional methods and make the right production and storage. Another important issue is raising awareness in consumers. I think it is a wrong attitude to be price oriented while buying form the market shelves. Unlabelled products or products sold in pet bottles contain carcinogen. What I really want is raising the awareness in public on this. I want consumers to be informed through more news and articles. As Hayal Bahçe’den, we are on the side of welcoming related people at our garden and plant, sharing our knowledge about the issue. In Turkey, there are many good quality olives, also many people working productively. If we can become more self-aware, our country can find a better place globally in olive cultivation.
