IN Brief:
- The EBRD is providing Memişoğlu with a loan of up to $29m.
- Investment will fund a canned pulses production line at the company’s Mersin facility.
- New processing technology is intended to reduce water and energy use while supporting exports and ready-to-eat production.
Memişoğlu Tarım Ürünleri is to install a canned pulses production line at its Mersin operation using financing of up to $29m from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
The funding will cover the new line and provide additional working capital as the Turkish food processor expands value-added production and exports. Advanced processing technologies included in the project are intended to reduce water and energy consumption.
Memişoğlu supplies pulses, grains, and food products to almost 100 countries, while its customers include the United Nations World Food Programme. The company’s acquisition of Tat Gıda in 2024 added sauces, tomato paste, convenience foods, and ready-to-eat products to its portfolio.
The Mersin investment will move a greater proportion of agricultural raw material into an ambient, prepared-food format. Beans, chickpeas, lentils, and related products can be cleaned, graded, hydrated, cooked, filled, sealed, thermally processed, inspected, and packed within an integrated operation.
Each stage influences yield and finished-product quality. Soaking controls water uptake and cooking performance, while excessive mechanical handling can increase splitting, skin damage, and starch release. Fill weight, brine composition, headspace, seam integrity, and retort conditions must remain stable across changing varieties and harvest characteristics.
Canning also produces a different utility profile from dry pulse cleaning and packing. Water is required for washing, hydration, cooking, cooling, and sanitation, while steam demand concentrates around cooking and sterilisation.
Processing captures more agricultural value
Türkiye already holds a substantial position in the trade and processing of grains and pulses, although bulk dry commodities generate a different return from ready-to-eat foods. Canned products add preparation, formulation, packaging, quality control, and shelf-life assurance before the goods leave the factory.
That additional processing opens access to retail, foodservice, institutional, and private-label markets that require a finished product rather than a raw ingredient. Long ambient shelf life also removes the energy demand and logistical complexity associated with chilled or frozen distribution.
Pulses are becoming more widely used in prepared meals, soups, sauces, salads, snacks, and plant based formulations. A company able to supply dry ingredients, canned products, tomato-based foods, and convenience formats can serve several points in the same market, although each route carries separate quality and customer-approval requirements.
European policy is moving in a similar direction, with the regional protein strategy linking agricultural supply with investment in extraction, preparation, and food-manufacturing capacity. Memişoğlu’s project sits outside the European Union but follows the same movement from crop availability towards higher-value processing.
Mersin provides access to agricultural production, established food-processing expertise, and one of Türkiye’s principal Mediterranean ports. Those advantages support high-volume inbound materials and international distribution, while exposing the operation to changing crop quality, packaging availability, freight rates, and trade conditions.
Water and heat will define line performance
The environmental outcome will depend on detailed equipment choices rather than the presence of a new line alone. Dry pulse cleaning produces dust and foreign material requiring controlled extraction, while soaking and cooking generate wastewater containing starch, suspended solids, and soluble organic material.
Modern cooking and retort systems can reduce utility use through heat recovery, water recirculation, improved insulation, and tighter recipe control. Their performance must be balanced against hygiene and process lethality, particularly where water is reused between stages.
Variation in seed size and hydration affects heat penetration, so retort schedules need to deliver commercial sterility without leaving the product excessively soft. Overprocessing may protect safety margins but can reduce visual quality, texture, and yield.
Can integrity adds another control layer. Empty containers must reach the filler without deformation, double seams must remain within specification, and finished cans need inspection for leaks, fill level, foreign material, coding, and physical damage.
Residual moisture after cooling can increase corrosion risk during prolonged export storage. Drying and handling after the retort are therefore as important as the thermal process, particularly where finished goods will encounter humid ports or long sea journeys.
The working-capital element of the finance will support purchases of pulses, cans, ends, labels, cartons, ingredients, and finished-goods inventory before sales generate cash. Export orders can carry extended payment cycles, making the commercial ramp-up of a new line almost as demanding as technical commissioning.
A connected training programme will provide young farmers in southern Türkiye with instruction in modern cultivation, productivity, digitalisation, and climate adaptation. Greater consistency in variety, moisture, size, pesticide use, and storage can improve factory yields and simplify process control.
Canning places stricter visual and cooking demands on the crop than some bulk channels because defects remain visible in the final container. A pulse that meets a basic commodity specification may still produce inconsistent hydration, colour, or texture after thermal treatment.
Closer alignment between growers and the factory can therefore reduce sorting losses and improve finished-product uniformity. Procurement data, crop trials, and processing results can help identify varieties and cultivation practices suited to the new line.
The investment connects agricultural sourcing, process engineering, packaging, utilities, and export logistics within one expansion. Its success will rest on controlling natural raw-material variation while reducing the water and energy traditionally associated with cooking and sterilisation.
Canned pulses may appear mechanically straightforward, yet dependable production relies on precise management of moisture, heat, filling, seams, and hygiene. Memişoğlu’s new capacity will have to deliver that control at export scale.
