My Story
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It all started when I realized that what I was looking for outside was actually inside me.
You know when a person experiences a calamity and realizes the value of what they have... That's exactly how my story began. While working in the glamorous nightlife of Istanbul, in the glittering world of celebrities, I saw the real face of those lives that were admired from the outside. And I realized: This is not what I was looking for.
That moment was Emre's rebirth.
First I would have to burn to ashes and only from those ashes would a journey begin...
I was living in Balat and I was really on a quest. We had initiated rural development projects in many regions of Turkey and worked shoulder to shoulder with the villagers... I never imagined that the efforts I had made in the villages in those years would one day fall right in the middle of my life.
With this awakening, I realized that the real wealth is actually inside me, in my essence.
One day I searched online "What is Kersen?" and this definition came up: "A wooden vessel for kneading dough is called a 'Kersen'."
At that moment I realized... It was not my choice, it was my duty.
I was living in Balat and I was really on a quest. We had initiated rural development projects in many regions of Turkey and worked shoulder to shoulder with the villagers... I never imagined that the efforts I had made in the villages in those years would one day fall right in the middle of my life.
With this awakening, I realized that the real wealth is actually inside me, in my essence.
One day I searched online "What is Kersen?" and this definition came up: "A wooden vessel for kneading dough is called a 'Kersen'."
At that moment I realized... It was not my choice, it was my duty.
This is how the name and brand Kersendüz was born.
In the rural development movement we started in the villages, we realized that the core value of the villages has always been bread. Sourdough and "Kersen" were inherited from mother to daughter. We have tried to recreate this heritage in every village, because the bread that used to be made in every house was the blessing of that house. The day we stopped making that bread, we lost our abundance. All our struggle is to regain the same abundance we had then and today...
But by the time we turned our backs, those breads were being mixed with fabricated yeast. Now, unfortunately, even in the villages, we have corrupted our core values for the sake of speed and comfort...
They always ask us: "How did you start this business?" And I say: We didn't choose this job, this job chose us.
During the continuation of a project in Düzce, the mayor was dismissed. Around the same time, my grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. My mother had a choice between taking care of her mother or not. And that choice that day...
It brought us to this day. God gave us Kersendüz after that election.
We started by converting the barn where my grandmother used to keep her cows into a workshop. On the day my grandmother passed away on February 15, 2018, the renovation of our workshop was finished. The entire investment was made with my brother's KYK scholarship. We built an adobe oven in front of the workshop. We carried wood to that oven in the snow and winter. I have never forgotten and will never forget the days when we had to cut the wood to carry it. Nothing was easy.
In 2020, when I was in Istanbul, I had to make a choice in a fast-paced life. As we always say: "Life is about choices."
I decided to return to Düzce that day. And as I was emptying my house, the pandemic broke out. Officially, the choice I made just before the pandemic had brought me to Düzce like an invisible hand.
Again without any capital...
We started with a small capital by selling the idle building my grandfather built, the garden my mother inherited from her father, and her car.
During the seven months of renovation, I interviewed at least 5 people or companies for each job. I tried to build the business, which has my sweat in every corner, meticulously and in the most appropriate way, and somehow I succeeded. But it was only the beginning of the road to achieve this, so much so that I didn't even have money to buy the toilet bowl of the shop. I started by traveling 5 hours to Zonguldak to find a second hand one.
When I started, I had never produced bread, nor did I have any idea about it...
Again without any capital...
We started with a small capital by selling the idle building my grandfather built, the garden my mother inherited from her father, and her car.
During the seven months of renovation, I interviewed at least 5 people or companies for each job. I tried to build the business, which has my sweat in every corner, meticulously and in the most appropriate way, and somehow I succeeded. But it was only the beginning of the road to achieve this, so much so that I didn't even have money to buy the toilet bowl of the shop. I started by traveling 5 hours to Zonguldak to find a second hand one.
When I started, I had never produced bread, nor did I have any idea about it...
I was thinking, "My mother will do the production and I will take care of the office work." That was the first time bread knocked me down... And since that day, it has been kneading and baking me. When we started working, my mother and I had an argument, she left the business and didn't come for a while.
That's the day, I started to lay the foundations of Turkey's bread.
Just as sand, cement and water are mixed together when a building is being constructed, I started by personally bringing each material from the region. I traveled to Kastamonu for Siyez wheat. I brought the wheat from there, had it peeled in a village in Ereğli, brought it back to Düzce, ground it in the mill and made the first bread. I shot documentaries about Siyez wheat. I used energized water in the bread. I found and used the only machine in Turkey for slice spacing.
And I did dozens of R&D and Innovation like this...
Since that day, I have been farming, milling and baking bread together. And all the prices I paid that day have created the Kersendüz bread that is woven today. Today, it has become a bread that touches millions of people in one way or another; a bread that is lynched by some without ever tasting it, and a bread that has changed the lives of others.
I always say it:
We do not only produce bread. We produce a value.
We are giving bread back the value it deserves.
It is easy to write these lines today... But living those days, one comes to the brink of giving up so many times...
Perhaps even as I write these lines, there are so many tears, sweat and loneliness... Because I am talking about something that is wasted in millions... A harmful behavior that has become a habit, albeit a wrong one, for a hundred years... And something that we consider sacred, but that we have reduced to a much lower value than it deserves...
Ben, you've spent your life dedicated to bread I'm one of them.
This is a life dedicated to Turkey's bread... And I know that this path is not easy and it will not be easy. I never set out on this path for money. If I had, I would have quit long ago.
We have had breads that we sold below cost, that we produced only so that people would eat the right kind of bread. I see the day when Anatolian people will one day have to understand the true value of bread. And before that day comes, I am working with all my strength to bring a forgotten and corrupted value that comes out of these lands back to its rightful place.
And Turkey's bread... One day it will represent this country as the best quality bread in the world.
As Kersendüz, we have the strength and determination to make this happen.
Because we have been experimenting with different variations every day for 7 years. And there are so many failures and tears and loneliness in those trials...
We have had breads that we sold below cost, that we produced only so that people would eat the right kind of bread. I see the day when Anatolian people will one day have to understand the true value of bread. And before that day comes, I am working with all my strength to bring a forgotten and corrupted value that comes out of these lands back to its rightful place.
And Turkey's bread... One day it will represent this country as the best quality bread in the world.
As Kersendüz, we have the strength and determination to make this happen.
Because we have been experimenting with different variations every day for 7 years. And there are so many failures and tears and loneliness in those trials...
The summit brings loneliness.
I know the reason for that loneliness and I thank the one who gave it to me. One day, everyone will understand Turkey's bread and give it the value it deserves. Maybe in 100 years... But one day, my struggle will be understood.
And for that day... Every day I choose not to give up.