As Servis Matbaa Malzemeleri, what are your advantages that bring you to the forefront in the services you provide? In 2023, how did this reflect on you at the Eurasia Packaging Fair?
Our advantages that bring Servis Matbaa Malzemeleri A.Ş. to the forefront are to supply the best #s related to Offset Printing production in the most favourable conditions and in the fastest way, to provide technical support in every subject at all times with a customer-oriented service approach, to help increase both printing quality and printing production efficiency by sharing unlimited information with customers. Apart from this, it is to develop new products in line with technological developments and to offer them to the use of customers and to contribute to the increase of the competitiveness of our printing presses serving in the printing sector in international markets. Servis Matbaa Malzemeleri offers materials to the industry that will ensure that all elements that directly affect quality, from ink to chamber water, from mould to blanket, from rollers to additives, from lacquer types to glues, from cleaning and maintenance chemicals to spray powders, work in full harmony with each other. Our company, which offers all the material requirements that our printing presses use for printing production, except paper, under one roof with the widest range of products, always prioritises customer satisfaction and makes no sacrifice in providing products under the most favourable conditions without compromising on quality. The Eurasia Packaging Fair, which was held this year, has been a great contribution to the development of many new customers, new cooperation opportunities and new projects both in Turkey and abroad in return for all these services we offer to our printing industry with the widest product range.
How do you think 2023 Eurasia Packaging Fair was? What are your impressions of the fair? What would you like to say about your competitors and your industry?
Despite the relatively small number of visitors at the 2023 Eurasia Packaging Fair, it is of great importance for us that very productive cooperation meetings were held with both domestic and foreign visitors. Foreign visitors are generally very interested in many chemical products such as offset and flexo printing ink types, reservoir waters, additives, cleaning and printing chemicals, and our roller coating services. In addition, many foreign companies visited our stand with requests for co-operation on various issues, especially representation, and we were happy to see that international companies producing various printing materials offered business partnership and agency offers. In general, we think that the economic recession experienced all over the world and the reasons for the tension and war in the Middle East caused a decrease in the number of visitors from foreign countries, especially in the 2023 Eurasia Packaging Fair. The significant decrease in consumption due to the effect of inflation and exchange rate increases in our country, the slowdown in production in many areas, and the fact that companies had to cut spending and save money caused a decrease in the number of domestic visitors. As in the whole world, the decline in the printing industry continues in our country. In these recent years, when there have been significant decreases in terms of both investment and production and consumption, the increases in the packaging industry are increasing at the same rate and the export share is constantly increasing. In the light of these facts, many printing presses in our industry are transforming towards the printing of packaging products. In this context, our group companies Servis A.Ş., Delta Roll A.Ş., Teknik Grup Ltd.Şti. and Delta Grup Ltd.Şti. will complete their R&D studies together with our domestic and foreign business partners and will start to present their new products to our printing and packaging industry with new projects in 2024.
You are the representative of Schwegmann in Turkey. What is the reason for investing in this company?
Schwegmann, which has developed high quality chemicals for the printing industry for more than fifty years, has been offering many FOGRA approved products to the printing industry for years. In addition to low emulsion products that are environmentally friendly and extremely safe for all working environments where printing production takes place, Schwegmann, which also has many ISEGA certified products for food packaging, also develops specially formulated products on demand for special applications and new technologies. The most important reason for our business partnership with Schwegmann, with which we share the same quality understanding and customer-oriented service principle, is to provide more service and contribute to our printing and packaging sector with a wide range of products produced in Germany in international quality standards, approved by printing machine manufacturers, FOGRA, ISEGA and BG ETEM certified, which play an important role in increasing printing quality and increasing printing production with their advanced features.
Jörg O. Seeger has offered Hakkı Tokat the position of Authorised Representative of Bernd SCHWEGMANN GmbH & Co.KG in Turkey.
Our first contact with Schwegmann started last year at the Eurasia Packaging, Print & Pack 2022 fair when Jörg O. Seeger, the company’s international sales manager, visited our stand. Jörg O. Seeger, who stated that he was aware of the achievements of Hakkı Tokat, the founding partner and General Manager of Delta Grup Ltd.Şti. and Teknik Grup Ltd.Şti. in Ankara and Servis A.Ş. and Delta Roll A.Ş. in Istanbul, in the field of printing materials and their contributions to the printing industry for many years, clearly demonstrated his trust in us by offering us the Authorised Representative of Bernd SCHWEGMANN GmbH & Co.KG in Turkey. After mutual visits and negotiations, a full consensus was reached on the business partnership and it was quickly understood that working together offers many opportunities for the printing and packaging industry and an official dealership agreement was signed in January 2023 as the authorised representative of the Turkic Republics, Middle East and North Africa countries as well as Turkey.
What are your goals for 2024 and beyond and your future plans?
Expanding our international sales network with our new business partners and contributing more to our economy by exporting more is one of our goals for 2024 and beyond. It is among our goals to serve in a wider scope by increasing our product range within the framework of new technologies, applications and developments and domestic and foreign demands and to offer new high quality products for pre-press and post-press applications in our industry. It is the constant goal of all our group companies together with Servis A.Ş. to increase the printing quality and production efficiency to the highest levels by contributing 7/24 to all our customers both on product basis and in the context of information and technical support.
Hakkı Tokat:’ We are contributing to the national economy’
In one of your previous interviews, you said ‘We aim to contributing to the national economy’. In one of your previous interviews, you said ‘We aim to contributing to the national economy’. Where are you at this goal now?
As Servis Matbaa Malzemeleri A.Ş., together with our group companies Delta Roll A.Ş., Teknik Grup Ltd. Şti. and Delta Grup Ltd. Şti. we have been increasing our contribution to our economy for years. We are also confident that we will contribute more to the national economy with new international co-operations and the commissioning of many of our planned projects. In this direction, the year 2023 continues to be very productive for all our group companies, especially Servis A.Ş., and our international sales are increasing day by day and we are getting closer step by step to our target of contributing to the national economy. As a result of the positive meetings held at this year’s Eurasia Packaging Fair, we believe that we will reach our goals we have targeted in 2024 with new cooperation and joint project studies.
Do you have investments in the Middle East?How does the agenda affect your investments?
We have cooperation and joint investment projects involving mainly Middle Eastern countries, Azerbaijan, Turkic Republics and some North African countries. Some of these have already been established, while others are still at the project stage and negotiations are ongoing. However, in recent days, we have had to suspend many of our meetings due to the increasing adverse events, tension and war in the Middle East and neighbouring countries. We hope that the peace phase will begin soon and the way will be paved for our projects to come into force.
In which product groups in your product range do you currently see more demand? Do you plan to increase your product range?
At the moment, Schwegmann products are popular; especially Roller Cleaning and Maintenance products, Anti Set-off spray powders and Hopper Waters are among the most demanded products. Especially in Ankara region, we are the market leader in web offset – Heatset and Coldset Hopper Waters. On the other hand, as Delta Roll A.Ş., we also receive significant order requests on a unit basis in rubber roller coatings. We can say that we are in the first place on a country basis in Delta Roll Rilsan® coated vargel rollers, which provide much more perfect ink transfer, high quality printing and significant performance increase than chrome rollers with ebonite and copper coatings. In order to increase our high quality product range with higher features and to provide the best service to our printing and packaging industry, our work continues at full speed within the scope of new projects that we are developing with our business partners both in Turkey and abroad. We announce today that we will contribute more to our industry with a much wider product range in the near future.
