On a busy street in Ankara’s Çankaya neighbourhood, in a prime spot outside a metro station, a small patisserie is showing what women can achieve in a traditionally male-dominated business environment.
Ankara Pastası’s 11 members of staff, who were all stay-at-home mothers until 18 months ago, are simultaneously managers and employees of the firm, which is run as a cooperative. Trading exclusively in gluten-free produce, the business has reached profitability and a turnover of 1 million lira since it opened in September 2022.
Each morning follows a familiar routine. At 5am, the women open the shop and start making products for the day’s trading: baklava, dumplings, pancakes and the sweet Turkish dessert kadayıf. Their pastries have become popular among customers who suffer from coeliac disease and must avoid gluten in their diet.
“When we started out, there were 13 of us, but two of our friends left us,” Nursel Türedi, the cooperative’s president, told Inside Turkey. The cooperative was launched with the support of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), as part of a project funded by the Japanese government, which gave Türedi and her colleagues hundreds of hours of training in food preparation, hygiene and business management.
Gluten-free baking is an intricate process, Türedi explained. “We need to be very careful. If there are small disruptions, such as fermentation taking three minutes too long or too little, the results can differ. Cold weather in winter and hot weather in summer can alter the quality of the products,”she said.
None of the cooperative members suffers from coeliac disease themselves, but decided to launch the business after the Ankara Metropolitan Municipality helped them identify a gap in the market. After opening the bakery with just ten products on offer, they realised that a lack of choice means coeliacs often have to eat bland food, so decided to diversify.
“The support of the Coeliac Association was very useful,” she said. “We have customers who reach us through internet search engines.”
She gave the example of a customer in Izmir – a city in western Turkey – who found them on the internet and sent their mother-in-law to pick up their order.
“The fact that we only sell gluten-free products creates an environment of trust. People have almost become like family here,” she said.
Türedi pointed out that they now have plans for expansion, and aim to open branches in central Ankara so that customers can reach them more easily.
The cooperative takes decisions about the business collectively. Six members are Syrians who fled their country’s civil war to build new lives in Turkey. At first, said Türedi, colleagues had to overcome the Turkish-Arabic language barrier, communicating through gesture in the early days.
Coeliac disease is an autoimmune condition that affects around 1 in 100 people, although only a third are ever diagnosed. Sufferers are unable to digest gluten, a protein found in grains such as wheat, barley and rye, and prolonged exposure can lead to further autoimmune complications or even cancer.
For those with the condition, achieving a nutritious diet can be a struggle, especially as gluten-free food can still pose a risk if it is prepared alongside products containing gluten.
According to dietician Merve Oğuz, “Even minuscule amounts of gluten, equivalent to less than a bread crumb, can provoke an immune response and potential harm to the body.”
Ankara Pastası avoids this risk by exclusively making gluten-free products. The cooperative offers tasting sessions to customers when developing new items and tweaks them according to the feedback. The sessions are announced through Ankara’s Coeliac Association and the city municipality, as well as via WhatsApp groups and on the bakery’s Instagram account.
Through their cooperation with the Coeliac Association, the bakery has identified demand for products such as filo pastry, a key ingredient in baklava. Şebnem Ercebeci Çınar, president of the Coeliac Association, told Inside Turkey that Ankara Pastası provided an important service.
Another common issue is cost. Gluten-free products are expensive, and while Ankara Pastası’s prices are higher than for gluten-containing equivalents, they aim to keep them below those of their specialist competitors.
Today, all the bakery’s operations, from production to sales and marketing, are carried out by the women of the cooperative. The FAO’s assistant representative in Turkey, Ayşegül Selışık, said that women’s empowerment was a key goal of the project. Women already play a significant role in food production in Turkey, but often lack the management skills to take control of their businesses.
The Ankara Metropolitan Municipality also lent its support, renovating a building in Çankaya for use and identifying potential cooperative members.
“Preserving the autonomous and independent structure of the cooperatives we support, fostering their self-sufficiency, and ensuring that their commercial endeavours remain focused on women’s empowerment and leadership are the priorities,” said Selışık.