Kırayteks; “We are a growth- and production-oriented firm”

Onur Kırayoğlu, Board Member of Kırayteks, gave an interview to Furkan Akar, the editor of Sleeepwell magazine. In the interview he gave in his office, Kırayoğlu made statements on many subjects from innovation to export, from the R&D center to ISPA EXPO 2022 Fair.

Mr. Onur, in the statements on the innovation, underlining the topics on continuous production and product development, declared that the types of innovation changed after the pandemic and that people primarily turned to products protected against viruses and bacteria. Kırayteks Board Member expressing that they have two R&D laboratories and an R&D team of 30 people, stated that the 90 % of tests realized for the fabrics are carried out in their own laboratories. Kayaoğlu, underlining that they will only invest in fabric in the mattress sector for now, stated that they will follow a growth-oriented policy about exports thanks to the many fair organizations they will participate in and new machinery investments in 2022.

Can you mention your innovative products, especially the fabrics you produce for mattress? Can we learn about the features of these fabrics, how they are produced with an R&D structure, and what conveniences and comforts they provide for customers?

We as the most established company in the sector are a company that have believed in continuous production and healthy growth and have acted on this basis for about 50 years. First of all, there are many standard products that are known in the mattress market, have a direct effect on human health or contribute to sleeping comfort in our collections, just like in our competitors in the market. Beside these products, there are also many products that we have developed in-house or contributed to the development of, and to which we add our own interpretation. We will launch some of them at ISPA Fair. Again, as for innovative products, the first thing that comes to mind is fabrics for people to sleep comfortably, wake up well in the morning and, of course, protect against disease, which is a need brought by the pandemic. For this reason, we introduced our anti-viral fabrics at the very beginning of the pandemic. These fabrics we produced were fabrics that could disinfect the virus up to 99% and prevent its reproduction when contacted. We have added to these, developed their innovative features and strengthened the laboratory work. Of course, it became a need occurred with this pandemic. That’s to say, before the pandemic, no one had requested “let my bed be anti-viral”. But now, of course, people feel obliged to take precautions against the virus. Naturally, one of the first questions people ask when buying a bed is; “How much does my bed guard against viruses and bacteria?” In that sense, we have different product options we have developed. Again, as you know, one of the most trending topics of recent times is sustainability. We have collections of fabrics that we produce under the theme of sustainable textiles, such as recycled or very ready for recycling, or biodegradable in a shorter time. We already had products having those features, we made additions to them. Human health and sleep comfort are above everything else, and with this philosophy we are designing and manufacturing our products. There is also a significant awareness among end consumers. Namely, when buying or researching products, they primarily prefer fabrics with thermal comfort or thermal control. The mattress fabric, in which the heat emitted by the body in contact with the fabric, is regulated by the thermal functions of the fabric, has begun to be widely adopted. We have 6-7 types of available fabrics providing thermal control. All of them have different features compared to each other. We made some additions to these before the ISPA Fair. Beside these, we have products that are produced using nano technologies, contain aroma therapeutic scents, facilitate breathing, reduce snoring, and provide anti-stress. We have products that are one of the trend products of the last period, for example, that enable the body to regenerate itself faster during sleep by returning infrared rays to the body. All of these contain many functions focused on human health.

We know that you also have an R&D center that enables the production of these fabrics. Can you mention the details of your R&D center?

We have 3 laboratories here within our own body. Two of these laboratories are included in the R&D center. That’s to say, the personnel working in the laboratory are R&D personnel. Totally 30 personnel, around 20 engineers and 10 technicians are working in these laboratories. From yarn preparation to finishing processes, all processes of production, are carried out within our own body. There are many production points such as knitting, weaving, dyeing, printing, lamination and finishing in these processes. Among these, laboratories also have the opportunity to carry out product developments under operating conditions by using all these production possibilities. Many of the instruments and equipment in our laboratories are state-of-the-art instruments produced by modern technologies. Thus, we can achieve almost 90% of the fabric performance results demanded by the industry within our own body. In this sense, that external dependency is reduced is extremely important in terms of protecting our R&D confidentiality.

We are seeing colorful bedding fabrics among your launch products. Are we going to see colored bedding fabrics in the 2022 trends as opposed to the classic white bedding fabrics?

Compared to the other classic mattress fabric, these products are more expensive and the production technology is relatively more different. We are talking about products of which development process is also hard. That the production is difficult caused the final product to be expensive. Therefore, these products were not preferred very often in the Turkish market before. I think as a result of the competition recently, as the prices are more competitive, we can see that its use in the market has spread a little more. There will be more colorful and more innovative products of us to add to those collections. However, these products are still preferred in Western Europe and the USA rather than in Turkey. Especially in the USA and Western Europe, gray tones, dark blues and pastel tones are the most preferred after white. As white makes a naturalness perception in the bed, the interest in white is still dominant in our geography and throughout the world. But of course, there is also a situation that, if white prevails in a showroom or fair stand, a very monotonous image is occurred. People like areas with colorful presentations more. I think this issue is very important in terms of diversification.

Will you have new investments and innovative studies on mattress components? Can you mention?

For now, we are not thinking of anything other than textiles. We will launch innovations such as textile-based developments and functional solutions to fabrics. Namely, beside the main fabrics used only on the bed, there will be special products such as bed side fabrics, bed furniture fabrics and inner protection fabrics of the bed that we will present at the ISPA fair. However, as I have just emphasized, we are going forward only on the basis of fabric and textile for now. We will continue to produce fabrics supporting mattress production.

What kind of export policy do you intend to follow by 2022? What is your year-end goal?

We did not have many problems with exports during the pandemic. Turkey has become an important supplier country, especially as the Asian suppliers have been eliminated. I can say that this important position Turkey had has been a driving force for all of us according to the investment and development in the markets. The dynamism in the market, the orientation towards textiles, that the new companies are opened and that the existing firms work to grow as export-oriented are the biggest indicators of this. We are also satisfied with our current export position. We made serious machinery investments in 2021. We got in return for these investments, and we are going on to get. We have an important potential as production capacity. Our machinery investments will continue in 2022. As our capacity growth continues, we think that 2022 will be a good year for us as a result of so many fairs and marketing activities we will attend.

ISPA fair will be held in March and you are taking part as a participant. Are there any other fairs that you plan to attend in Turkey and abroad in 2022? Can you mention?

Our Kırayteks Sleep and Technical Textiles departments will participate in around 12 fairs in total in 2022. The first fair that our Sleep section is interested in will be ISPA Expo Orlando, and then we have the IBIA Expo Fair for 2022, which we attach great importance to. You know, it will be held for the first time in Turkey. ISPA and IBIA Expo fairs will undoubtedly be the star fairs of this year, as they have a more sectoral concept and have very strong association support behind them. I think Istanbul Hometex, Dubai SleepExpo, Colombia Heimtextil and Russia MebelExpo will be the fairs we will attend this year. As the pandemic is under control, the fairs have become active again and people’s wish for travel is very high right now. At this point, fairs serve as an important meeting point. And over there, the rival also sees the other rival. So there’s a competition there too. These are important things for the development of the sector.