Emsland Middle East: Connecting Global Expertise with Local Knowledge
For the Emsland Group, being close to customers means understanding local markets, building lasting relationships and turning global expertise into solutions that work in practice.
From its base in Dubai, Emsland Middle East supports customers and partners across the Middle East, Africa and South Asia (MEASA). The team combines sales, technical and commercial expertise with local market knowledge, connecting customers in the food and technical industries with the wider Emsland Group.
Ali Gurcan Genc, Managing Director of Emsland Middle East and the Emsland Group’s longest-serving employee outside Europe, has been part of this development for almost 20 years. His career reflects the evolution of the company’s presence in the region – from a smaller sales operation to an established regional organization.
FROM LOCAL BEGINNINGS TO A REGIONAL PRESENCE
Ali joined the Emsland Group in April 2006 as an Area Sales Manager at Emsland Nişasta in Izmir, Turkey. In 2016, he moved to Dubai to become Managing Director of Emsland Middle East, taking responsibility for developing the business across a much wider region.
“Establishing the office in Dubai was about taking our business to the next level,” Ali explains. “It gave us the opportunity to strengthen our presence in the technical and food industries across the region and build a much closer way of working with our customers and partners.”
Today, Ali is Managing Director of Emsland Middle East and continues to operate as Sales Manager for Emsland Nişasta, the two Emsland Group companies have complementary roles in the region.
Founded in 1994 and part of the Emsland Group since 2012, Emsland Nişasta has a long-standing presence in Turkey and neighboring markets. The company serves food and technical applications, with a particular focus on textile applications and locally produced starch blends tailored to the needs of the textile industry.
From Dubai, Emsland Middle East serves customers across the region, while a network of distributors and agencies further extends the Emsland Group’s reach. Their local market knowledge and established customer relationships help bring the Group’s solutions closer to customers across the region.
“You cannot export trust. You have to build it locally, shoulder-to-shoulder with your partners,” Ali says.
BRINGING GLOBAL EXPERTISE CLOSER TO THE MARKET
Emsland Middle East is part of the Emsland Group’s international network, combining the Group’s product knowledge, R&D capabilities and technical expertise with an understanding of regional markets.
The Innovation Center in Emlichheim, Germany, provides an important technical foundation. The regional team, meanwhile, contributes knowledge of customers, markets and local business conditions, helping translate this expertise into solutions suited to specific regional requirements.
“Colleagues in Germany provide the technical expertise, while our role is to translate that expertise into solutions that make sense commercially and locally,” Ali explains.
The exchange also works in the other direction. Customer feedback and market insights from MEASA are shared with colleagues across the Emsland Group, helping bring regional requirements into product and solution discussions.
UNDERSTANDING A DIVERSE MARKET
MEASA is highly diverse, with significant differences in customer expectations, regulations, consumption habits and economic conditions depending on the region. At the same time, most customers are increasingly looking for solutions that combine quality and functionality with cost efficiency. In food applications, clean-label ingredients and plant-based products are among the trends shaping additional demand.
“Customers are no longer simply looking to buy ingredients,” Ali says. “They want to also understand how ingredients can help them optimize their formulations, manage costs and respond to changing consumer expectations.”
Staying close to customers enables the regional team to identify these requirements and work with the wider Emsland Group to address them. This can mean adapting a formulation, solving a production challenge or finding a more cost-effective approach while maintaining the required product performance.
CONNECTING CUSTOMERS WITH THE EMSLAND GROUP
When a customer has a specific technical challenge or requires a solution adapted to local conditions, the regional team acts as a direct link to the Emsland Group’s technical experts.
“It is a continuous exchange,” Ali says. “When we identify a specific customer need, we can bring that directly to our technical colleagues and work together on a solution.”
Emsland Middle East’s network of distributors and agencies adds another layer of local connection. Their market presence and customer relationships complement the regional team and help extend the Emsland Group’s reach across diverse markets.
For customers, this means local support and market understanding backed by the technical expertise, product portfolio and resources of the wider Emsland Group.
LOOKING AHEAD
For Emsland Middle East, the next step is to continue strengthening customer relationships and deepening its understanding of the markets it serves.
The goal is to build on the combination that has shaped the business to date: the Emsland Group’s technical know-how, product expertise and global resources, together with the market knowledge, customer proximity and local experience of the regional team and its partners.
“We want to continue evolving from being a preferred supplier to being a truly integrated partner for our customers,” Ali says. “That means understanding their businesses, their challenges and where they want to go next.”
After almost 20 years of development, connecting the Emsland Group with customers and partners across the region remains at the heart of Emsland Middle East’s role.
𝗝𝗼𝗶𝗻 𝘂𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗡𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟯–𝟱 𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗚𝘂𝗹𝗳𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝘂𝗳𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗲𝘅𝗵𝗶𝗯𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗗𝘂𝗯𝗮𝗶 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗲 𝗖𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿!
Visit our team at 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗥-𝗠𝟮𝟱 𝗶𝗻 𝗦𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗸𝗵 𝗥𝗮𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗱 𝗛𝗮𝗹𝗹 to learn more about our plant-based ingredients and discover how our solutions can support your product development across a range of food applications.
