Can we get brief information about the establishment and development adventure of Aslandağ Ahsap?
We are a very young company of 60 years old. Our association with trees started 60 years ago as a father's profession. Our founder and father, Saadettin Aslandağ, was building high-quality wooden houses using the best timber in our hometown, Kastamonu. Today, we run this business, which our father started, with my 4 siblings. Starting with a small workshop of 70 m2 in Istanbul in 1997, today we have reached a position where we produce in an area of approximately 30 thousand m2. We have two brands, one is Artella Wooden Door Systems and the other is Tresette Mutfak. We are a family business with my 4 siblings. We have companies in many fields within the Aslandağ Group. You also made an investment in the construction real estate side. We implemented urban transformation projects in the Kartal region. We also have a company called Compodoor, which is a supplier to the Turkish door and kitchen sector and brings the most innovative products in the field of doors and kitchens to Turkey.
We believe that there is a very important need to strengthen local brands in Turkey, and we are happy when we see such brands. Because we are all in the same boat. When we started this business in the late 1990s, there was no door brand in Turkey. Foreign brands generally responded to this need. Nowadays, these brands no longer exist. Because the door industry has developed in our country. There are a few other companies like us that specialize in door production. This makes us happy. We sell value-added products to approximately 20 countries with our Artella brand. Rather than just wooden interior room doors, we have many innovative products such as personalized doors and fire-resistant doors. We are currently selling doors to Germany, Australia and America. These are works that make us proud. We are happy to produce for our country.
So what was the starting point of your Tresette Mutfak brand?
In the past, we were a company that provided decoration services. We were doing work in hotels, restaurants and private residences. With the development and growth of the construction industry, our Artella Door brand has also changed to a certain point. In those days, we established our brand as Artella Door, Kitchen and Bathroom. With the growth in the sector, Artella remained the door brand. When we went to companies, we said, “We are building your doors. When we said, "Let's make an offer for your kitchen, too," he said, "You are the doorman." Can you make a kitchen? We started to encounter statements like: We said, "Our main job is the kitchen" and we created our Tresette brand to break this perception. We are a completely local brand. Because of its name, Tresette is considered an Italian brand. However, the name story of our brand developed as follows. As I said before, we are from Kastamonu and our license plate number is 37. Tre is 3 in Italian and Sette is 7. Thus, we wanted to be reminded of the land of our birth at all times.
As a country, we have been experiencing a serious decline in the construction sector for a while. The domestic market has almost come to a standstill. How do you evaluate this process, what precautions did you take?
The contraction in construction has directed us more towards studies related to abroad. We had been exporting for many years, but it was not at the levels we wanted. This economic stagnation and the difficult situation in the construction industry led us to export. We had a very serious infrastructure. We are currently developing it. We opened a showroom in London. There is a group of ceramicists and marble makers there. As you know, Turkish trade centers are forming abroad. We became one of the 15 companies in the structuring in the Turkish trade center in London. We recently gave representation for fire-resistant doors in Australia. We do business in Iraq, Algeria and Saudi Arabia. We targeted 70 percent in exports and we are working hard to achieve our goal.
We have 2 stores called 4A Collection where we make retail sales. We offer products of Tresette, Pedini, Okey Porte and Compodoor brands for sale in these stores. We want to expand our store network in Turkey. In some provinces, we make our sales through dealers. We continue to fill the capacity of our factory with our export and Türkiye sales.
Can we get some information about your group's sustainability efforts?
We attach great importance to the issue of sustainability and we have two very serious projects closely related to the subject. Firstly, we are a Ministry-approved R&D design center. We received approval for both the kitchen and the door 6 months ago. We have serious infrastructure work on this issue. In addition, we have a competition called “I Design a Door”. We held it for the third time this year. When we look at it from an export perspective, the "I Design a Door" competition leads to the creation of products that are strong in design, sustainable, manufacturable and environmentally friendly. Our theme this year was sustainability.
I would like to explain why we are doing this competition. As I just mentioned, our country needs local brands. Our starting point is brand creation.
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