How do public administrations meet food needs?
Public administrations meet their food service needs with several different methods. The most basic and long-standing method is to purchase food from the market by tender, and to carry out the cooking and distribution processes with the administrations' own means. This method is still used in many military units.
The other method is purchasing food services with ingredients. In other words, administrations purchase food supplies and cooking services from the same contractor.
The least common form of food purchase is the purchase of rations. Food rations are purchased for short-term missions, such as AFAD officers, police, soldiers, etc.
How do the administrations determine the type and quality of the food they purchase through tender, either cooked or as rations?
Administrations determine the type, quantity and quality of the food they will purchase in their technical specifications and go out to tender. However, care is taken to ensure that the food in question is of a quality appropriate to the administration's duty. For example, law enforcement officers on operational duties need to take in the necessary calories or hospitals need to provide diet food for diabetic patients. For this reason, food lists are prepared by experts. Administrations assign dietitians or food engineers to this task.
How do public administrations purchase food services?
Türkiye's public procurement market size reached 2023% of GDP in 6. In 2024, public procurement increased to 2.5 trillion lira, of which 450 billion lira was made up of the service sector, including food service procurement.
Every year, more than 700 companies sign contracts with public administrations, either individually or through partnerships, within the scope of food services. In this context, it makes an average of more than 2.500 food service contracts every year. The most important of these contracts are carried out by companies operating in Ankara. The most important reason for this is that the administrations within the scope of the central government are located in Ankara.
Can you say that the competition among companies operating in the food sector is quite intense in tenders?
Food service procurement tenders are an area where there is a lot of competition. I would like to explain this by giving an example. In 2024, more than 2.000 objection complaints were made to the Public Procurement Authority for food service procurement tenders, citing various reasons. In other words, companies that wanted to compete under more favorable conditions in food service procurement tenders did not hesitate to take the issue to the Authority. Again, in a tender held in Ankara in 2024, 22 people submitted bids, and the margin of error was as high as 55%. In other words, there is fierce competition. However, tender competition can also be at more reasonable levels due to reasons such as the location of the tender, the nature of the administration, and the feasibility of the specifications.
In an environment where there is so much competition, how do public administrations ensure that the food is produced to the specifications and quality they want?
This is a very important question. Especially today, as a result of the inspections carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, food products that are understood to be counterfeit or adulterated are disclosed. It is very difficult for the administration to inspect the ingredients used in food in detail and to identify such foods. For this reason, it is important to control companies that sign contracts with high deduction rates by offering prices well below the approximate cost.
What do you think companies that want to get a share from the highly competitive food service procurement but have not participated in a tender before should do?
Recently, there have been important developments in our public procurement system. For example, e-tenders have become widespread. Tenders are now being held in a more secure environment. In other words, a company operating in Edirne can participate in a food tender in Kars using the computer on its desk.
However, the real problem stems from not being familiar with the tender legislation and not being able to read the tender documents prepared by the administrations sufficiently. Currently, dozens of food companies have been banned from tenders due to their lack of tender literacy.
As someone who has been a tender consultant to the most important food companies in Türkiye, I must say that all companies that make high profits in tenders definitely receive consultancy from professionals. In short, there is no point in participating in food service tenders without knowing the tender legislation.
There are many companies across Türkiye that have problems with food service procurement tenders. What are the main services you provide to these companies as a corporate entity?
Public tenders are conducted with complicated legislation that is difficult to understand and whose implementation is based on experience. In addition, tender practices are an area with definitive provisions in terms of form and duration, which have restrictive rules. Not only the tender, but also the inspection and acceptance procedures, price difference and entitlement procedures are areas where almost all contractor companies have disagreements with the administration during the execution of the contract.
Public procurement legislation consists of two separate laws, dozens of secondary legislations and countless regulatory decisions. It is not possible for a food company to know the legislation to the letter and follow it on a daily basis. For this reason, companies that do not want to make mistakes work with us.
What advice would you give to food companies to access detailed information within the scope of tenders?
Today, “knowledge” is the most important power! For this reason, we produce content on hesap.tv to share the knowledge and experience we have gained over the last 30 years with the public. I recommend that you review the “Public Procurement Law and Practices”, “Public Procurement Contracts Law” and “Service Procurement and Labor Law Practices” sections on this channel.
Similarly, I recommend our 3 books that companies that will participate in tenders within the scope of food service procurement can benefit from. The first of these is our work called “Documents Showing Work Experience in Public Tenders”, which contains important information on participating in tenders. The second is our work called “Determination, Questioning and Explanation of Extremely Low Bids in Public Tenders”. The last book I can recommend is our work called “Procedures for Prohibition in the Public Tender Process”. This book is an important book that compiles the issues regarding not being banned during the tender process or what kind of procedures should be done in case of a ban.
Who is Ilyas Kilic?
İlyas Kılıç completed his undergraduate and graduate education at the Military Academy and Selçuk University. Kılıç is a public administration specialist and also a tender consultant. After working for 20 years in public institutions within the scope of tender and contract law, he retired in 2010 at his own request. He wrote articles on tenders in many newspapers and magazines. He edited tender books published by Kılıç Academy Publications.
Ilyas Kilic, who is also the chairman of the board of directors of Kilic Corporate Consultancy Inc., provides consultancy services to various public institutions and corporate companies within the scope of tenders. Kilic Corporate Consultancy includes tender experts, lawyers, expert auditors and solution partners. Together with his team, he informs the public within the scope of tenders via the tender.tv YouTube channel.
Source: HORECA TREND