Ritas, 50 years of experience in the yarn industry

Founded by Rifat Kaleoglu in 1960s Ritas has been in the yarn industry serving many industries.

Stating that they contributed to the economy and the country by their domestic sales and export volume Yasemin Kaleoglu, Chief of Ritas Nonwoven Department, said that they have also contributed to the brand image of Gaziantep city through their quality products. Her answers to the questions of Sleep Tech are offered below:

Could you brief us about yourself?

Ritas name has been on the textiles market since 1960’s. It is a quiet long-established company from Turkey. We have a number of activities in textiles, industrial packaging and construction areas. The main production fields are acrylic yarns, technical woven fabrics, fibers, sacks and big-bag production, and finally nonwoven production.

I especially would like to talk about our nonwoven production. We have been in the nonwovens market since 2001. Our aim has been to be positioned in both international and domestic markets from the very beginning. And today we are very glad to see that we have achieved what we targeted. It’s been a long and very excited journey to cooperate and step up with our customers. We are also very glad that we create a business environment based on a mutual trust, goodwill and principle to smooth our customers’ and suppliers’ businesses.

It’s been our main understanding to provide solutions as well as the products to our customers’ needs. Sometimes our customers have taught us via their experiences to improve the performance of the nonwovens, sometimes we supplied them our know-how to create value to their businesses. And now, we look back and see that, we left almost 15 years behind. And we owe it to walk the path with our customers side by side.

Could you furnish us with general information about Ritaş?

As I explained you Ritas is an over 60 year-old company. It’s founded in Gaziantep and still all the production has been going on in Gaziantep. In 2012 70% of the production exported and Ritas has been listed in the top 1000 exporters of Turkey by TIM for years. For 2013 we aim the same and even better ratios. Also our company has been listed in the top 1000 producers in Turkey list issued by Istanbul Chamber of Commerce every year. As mentioned to export activities, I can confidently say that our main market is Europe with all parts which means the quality of our products have been recognized by the producers from all over Europe. It’s been one of our core competences to position our quality within the European standards for all of our products and create values.

Which sectors do you serve with your nonwovens?

As most of you know, nonwovens sector is a quiet wide area from agricultural applications to protective cloth applications, medical applications etc.

Ritas has been serving bedding-sleeping industry, furniture industry, agricultural sector, shoes and leather-craft applications etc. With our recent investment which we have launched as of October 2013, we target medical and hygiene sectors. We will keep the market updated about the news about this new investment.

Could you brief us about your production?

As mentioned before, all of our production goes on in Gaziantep facilities. Our nonwoven production plant is located in the Second Industrial Zone in Gaziantep. With experience that we gained through all those years we can produce customized solutions for the needs of our customers with special treatments. Some of the examples of the special treatments are UV treated, anti-microbial, flame-retardancy, wide widths for agricultural purposes etc. The products are tested both within our laboratories and accredited laboratories. So we can conveniently say that our production quality is at and even above the universal standards. We have an experienced and powerful engineer team and stuff. All the production team has been educated with the new trends in the market so they can gain the new approaches and innovations.

Can you inform us about your foreign trade; exports and imports? 

We are very assertive about export of our goods. It is Ritas’ vision in the first place. Every year we are working to step our exports up and gain new customers in our portfolio. We are trying to increase our market share with our best effort. And we are very proud of to be in the top 1000 exporters lists and make the world to use Turkish products.

We have lots of customers from all over Europe and we are very glad to be recognized as the long-lasting business partner. Because when it comes to export, the long-lasting service and gradually improving quality is very important. Export market requires stability, improvement, know-how and expertise. And we believe we are very good at serving international customers.

When we look at the overall export ratio at Ritas, it is at the level of 70%. The main market is Western Europe but of course we have customers from all over Europe. Also we export to United States of America despite the international trade boundaries of the United States market. The other markets that our products have been consumed are North Africa, Middle East, Asian countries like Russia, Ukraine etc.

What do you have in your product range?

There are lots of textiles and industrial packing products in Ritas’ portfolio. The readers can visit us on our website www.ritas.com.tr and www.ribondnonwoven.com to gain the all related information about our products. However I can mention a few of them. For nonwovens we have every-day solutions for bedding and furniture industry like spring pockets, quilting fabrics, nonwovens for mattress ticking or upholstery. On the other hand we have a solution especially for agricultural sector to cover the greenhouses to protect the plants from the temperature differences during the day and rain, snow etc. Or we have a wide range of color choices for furniture industry. Also we supply special treated nonwovens like UV, anti-static, flame-retardant etc. to our customers.

How was 2013 for your company?

2013 has been a very busy and excited and as Ritas team we have been in a very good mood. Of course this is resulted from our new investments and brand-new products. We have expended energy to improve our dialogs with our customers. We have spent lots of time in the labs to catch the best qualities and best performances to fulfill our customers’ needs. We have added new products to our portfolio and targeted new markets. We have increased our export ratio. We have new colleagues joined our engineering and sales teams so we have expanded our teams.  As you see we did good things during 2013 and eventually it’s been very busy but the things that we achieved in 2013 make us proud and glad.

What plans or targets do you have for 2014?

Our first and most important target for 2014 is to be the leading supplier of the products that we launched in 2013. We aim to create the same synergic environment with our current customers in our new markets. Also we will be looking for new solutions for our customers, new investment areas to increase our strength within the markets.

Is there anything you would especially like to mention?

I can hint that Ritas will be doing very good works in 2014 and we will continue to move forward with our business partners. Also since this is the last issue of the year of your magazine, I would like to wish a great 2014 to all your followers.