Cereal Partners opens breakfast cereal factory in Turkey

Cereal Partners Worldwide, a 50:50 joint venture between Nestlé and General Mills, has opened a TRY85m ($45.12m) breakfast cereal factory in Karacabey, western Turkey.

The new factory, which will have a production capacity of about 15,000tpa of breakfast cereal, will cater to the Turkish market as well as 14 countries in Middle East and Africa.

The factory will source most of the raw materials required for breakfast cereals manufacture (grains such as wheat, corn and rice) from Turkey.

With the new unit, Cereal Partners plans to make Turkey into a regional centre for the production of breakfast cereals.

Nestlé Turkey chief executive Hans-Ulrich Mayer said that last year, almost one million new households started eating breakfast cereals in Turkey, and this is an important indication of sustained interest in this category.

"We expect consumption of breakfast cereals in Turkey to increase in the coming years," Mayer added.

The new Turkey factory is the 15th Nestlé breakfast cereal production facility to be built worldwide; the other plants are located in France, Poland, Portugal, Russia, the UK and countries throughout Asia, Oceania and Latin America.

Cereal Partners Worldwide, which began operations in 1990, entered the breakfast cereals market in Turkey in 1998.

Headquartered in Switzerland, the company produces and sells breakfast cereals, the majority of which are Nestlé branded, in more than 130 countries outside the US and Canada.

Last year, Cereal Partners opened a CHF47m ($49.64m) innovation centre focused on breakfast cereal solutions in Switzerland and also announced plans to invest CHF35m ($36.97m) in the construction of a new breakfast cereals factory in Malaysia, which is due to begin production this year.

Nestlé, headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland, provides nutrition, health and wellness products worldwide, while General Mills, based in Minnesota, US, manufactures and markets consumer foods worldwide.