Sustainable Özbek Grape Farming in Kalecik

HHY Agro grows Özbek seedless grapes in Kalecik, in the Ankara province of Türkiye, on vineyards that belong to HHY GROUP rather than to an intermediary. Kalecik sits in a river valley that has carried vines for centuries, and Özbek, a Turkish seedless cultivar, is cultivated there for premium snacking and as a natural sweetening ingredient in HHY GROUP's own food production. Because the same group owns both the vineyard and the factory, fruit can be followed from an identified block of vines to the line that processes it, with no trading house in between. This article describes the region, the variety, and the sustainable viticulture practices behind that supply chain.

Why Kalecik Is a Strong Grape-Growing Region

Kalecik lies northeast of the city of Ankara, where the Kızılırmak river cuts through the Central Anatolian plateau and opens a sheltered valley at moderate altitude. That combination matters for grapes. The valley softens the harshest edges of the continental climate, while elevation keeps summer nights cool, and the resulting swing between hot, high-light days and cool nights is what allows berries to build sugar and aromatic character while holding acidity and firm skins. The surrounding soils tend to be light, calcareous and free-draining, the kind of ground that encourages vines to root deeply and discourages the standing moisture that fungal disease depends on.

Kalecik's viticultural heritage: Kalecik is one of Anatolia's long-established grape districts and is known internationally as the home of Kalecik Karası, a native Turkish variety named after the town itself. That heritage is not decoration. It means generations of accumulated local knowledge about pruning, canopy work and harvest timing in this specific microclimate, and a farming community that already understands vines.

The Özbek Seedless Grape and What It Becomes

Özbek is a Turkish seedless table grape cultivar, and it is the variety HHY Agro grows on its Kalecik vineyards. Seedless grapes are judged on a narrow set of characteristics: berry size and uniformity, skin integrity, the balance between sugar and acidity, and how well the fruit holds its texture after picking. The cultivar and the site have to agree with one another for those characteristics to land consistently. Concentrating on a single, well-matched variety on ground that suits it is simpler to manage agronomically than spreading attention across many cultivars, and it makes quality far easier to keep stable from one season to the next.

The crop serves two purposes inside HHY GROUP. The first is premium snacking, where fruit is selected for size, appearance and eating quality. The second is as a natural sweetening ingredient, where concentrated grape sweetness can carry part of a recipe's sweetness profile in products developed within HHY GROUP's food production. Seedless grapes from Kalecik are cultivated to meet the quality standards those two uses demand, which in practice means decisions in the vineyard are made with the end product already in view rather than for an anonymous commodity buyer.

Sustainable Practices in the Vineyard

Sustainable viticulture is less a label than a set of habits that keep a vineyard productive for decades rather than seasons. The practices below are the established principles of responsible vineyard farming, and they form the framework HHY Agro works within on its Kalecik blocks.

- Soil health first: A vineyard's long-term productivity is stored in its soil. Cover crops and managed inter-row vegetation, the return of pruning residues and organic matter to the ground, and restrained tillage all protect soil structure, limit erosion on sloping blocks, and feed the microbial life that makes nutrients available to the vine. Healthy soil also holds water better, which reduces how much irrigation the vineyard needs in the first place.

- Water-efficient irrigation: Central Anatolia has dry summers, so water is treated as the limiting resource it genuinely is. Drip and micro-irrigation deliver water to the root zone rather than to the air or the inter-row, and scheduling based on soil moisture and vine condition rather than on a fixed calendar avoids watering vines that do not need it. Applied deliberately, mild and controlled water stress at the right growth stage is also a quality tool, concentrating flavour instead of inflating berries with water.

- Integrated pest management: IPM is the industry approach of monitoring first and intervening last. Scouting, trapping and weather-informed disease models establish whether a pest or fungal risk is actually present. Cultural measures such as canopy opening, airflow and vineyard sanitation reduce pressure before any product is considered. Where intervention is genuinely necessary, it is targeted, timed, and chosen with beneficial insects and pre-harvest intervals in mind. The aim is a resilient vineyard ecosystem rather than a sterile one.

- Traceability from vine to crate: Blocks are worked and harvested as identifiable units, so fruit does not lose its origin at the moment it is picked. Recording what was done where, from pruning and irrigation to any crop protection and the harvest date, is what makes a traceability claim verifiable downstream instead of merely asserted.

From Vine to Factory: Traceability Through Vertical Integration

HHY GROUP is vertically integrated by design: agriculture, chocolate manufacturing and nut processing sit inside one company as a single continuous chain. HHY Agro is the agricultural end of that chain, farming walnuts, olives, almonds and seedless grapes across landholdings that exceed 10,000,000 m² in total. Grapes harvested in Kalecik move into the group's own production rather than onto an open market, so there is no trading intermediary standing between the vineyard and the factory gate.

That structure changes what the group can tell a customer. When a question arrives about how a raw material was grown, the answer comes from colleagues working those same vineyards rather than from a broker's assurance about an unnamed supplier. It also shortens the feedback loop in the other direction, because what production and quality teams learn about the fruit goes straight back to the people making agronomic decisions for the next season. Downstream, HHY GROUP's manufacturing operates under BRCGS, ISO 22000 and Halal certification across three production facilities, exporting to more than 50 countries, so traceable raw material enters a certified and audited processing environment.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where are HHY Agro's seedless grape vineyards located?

In Kalecik, a district of Ankara province in Türkiye. Kalecik sits in the Kızılırmak valley on the Central Anatolian plateau and has a long viticultural history. The vineyards are owned and farmed by HHY Agro, HHY GROUP's agricultural operations brand, which also grows walnuts, olives and almonds.

What is the Özbek grape and what is it used for?

Özbek is a Turkish seedless table grape cultivar. HHY Agro grows it in Kalecik for two uses inside HHY GROUP: premium snacking, where berry size, appearance and eating quality matter most, and natural sweetening, where the fruit's concentrated sweetness contributes to recipes developed within the group's own food production.

How does owning the vineyards improve traceability?

Because the vineyard and the factory belong to the same group, the fruit never passes through a trading intermediary. Origin is recorded at block level in the vineyard and carried forward into production, so questions about how a raw material was grown are answered by the people who grew it. Quality feedback from the factory also reaches the agronomic team directly, in time to shape the next season.

Conclusion

Sustainable viticulture in Kalecik is not a slogan attached to a box of grapes. It is soil kept alive, water spent carefully, pest pressure managed rather than blanket-treated, and fruit that never loses its address on the way to the factory. HHY Agro farms the Özbek seedless grape this way because HHY GROUP is the customer for its own harvest, and a vertically integrated company has nowhere to hide from the quality of its own raw material. If you are sourcing grape-based ingredients, or simply want to understand how our farm-to-factory chain would support your product, our team will gladly walk you through it.

Sustainable Özbek Grape Farming in Kalecik, Türkiye