Turkey's Çumra Şeker opens 23rd beet campaign after €22 million capacity upgrade

Çumra Şeker began its 23rd sugar beet procurement campaign at a ceremony in Çumra, in Turkey's central Konya province, where the cooperative group that owns the plant confirmed the completion of a 22 million euro capacity upgrade at two of its sugar factories. Daily beet slicing capacity at Çumra Şeker has been raised from 16,000 tonnes to 20,000 tonnes, and at the Konya Şeker plant from 10,000 tonnes to 12,000 tonnes, according to yenikonya.com.tr and sondakika.com.

Ramazan Erkoyuncu, general chairman of PANKOBİRLİK and chairman of the board of the Konya Sugar Beet Growers' Cooperative, said the upgrades were carried out during the previous campaign period and called the project a delayed investment that has now been completed. He put the combined cost of the two projects at 22 million euros and described Çumra Şeker as one of the significant operators in Turkey's sugar industry.

Beet volumes and sugar output

The Konya and Çumra plants together processed 3,430,500 tonnes of beet in the previous campaign and produced 496,000 tonnes of sugar, Erkoyuncu said. Konya Governor İbrahim Akın, speaking at the same ceremony, put the processed volume at approximately 3.5 million tonnes and said the capacity increases had raised daily throughput, while shorter production cycles had improved efficiency and generated savings.

Akın said the factories operating under the Konya Sugar Beet Growers' Cooperative cover roughly 17 percent of Turkey's sugar requirement. He added that processing beet grown in Çumra at modern facilities matters for the regional economy and for integration between farming and industry.

Konya Plain holds 35 percent of national beet area

Erkoyuncu said the Konya Plain accounts for 35 percent of Turkey's sugar beet planting, a share the region maintains despite a four-crop rotation system that limits how often beet returns to the same field. He said the crop is larger this year and that the cooperative expects a high-volume campaign.

He also pointed to conditions in the wider sugar market, saying the negative supply-demand balance in sugar affects the cooperative as well, and that he hoped the market would return to a balanced and healthy state next year. He gave no price or stock figures.

Investment directed at subsidiaries rather than new plants

Erkoyuncu said the group is concentrating spending on raising output at existing subsidiaries instead of building new factories, linking that choice to energy-related debt carried from an earlier period. New production line investments are under way in the snack products group, with a total of 8.5 million euros to be spent.

In the meat and dairy business, Erkoyuncu said investments at Panagro since 2021 total 15,389,782 dollars, and that the unit is the market leader in sucuk, a Turkish fermented sausage.

Solar plants cover part of subsidiaries' power demand

Erkoyuncu gave the following figures for solar capacity installed at Konya Şeker subsidiaries and the share of each site's energy needs it covers:

• Panagro: 6.8 megawatts, covering 35 percent of energy demand
• Seydibey: 5 megawatts, covering 35 percent
• Panplast: 3.7 megawatts, covering 30 percent
• Sarıoğlan: 1 megawatt, covering 95 percent

A further solar project will be built on a site of about 50,000 square metres at a new factory location in Cihanbeyli, Erkoyuncu said, closing with wishes for a successful 2026-2027 campaign period. The ceremony was attended by Governor Akın, Karatay Mayor Hasan Kılca, Konya Provincial Director of Agriculture and Forestry Duran Seçen, district mayors, political party representatives, and chamber and union heads.