The Largest Turkish Food Company in Austria: The Macro Group

Ünal, with seven friends, started the wholesale food and marketing business in 1985 under the name of Aksoy. When his friends gradually quit the business the company was left to Ünal.

He started the halal meat business in Austria in 1990, first by buying around 300 live lambs per week from Czechoslovakia and Poland  to sell only in his own markets. When demand increased, he began importing 1500-2000 lambs per week from Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungry, Rumania, Bulgria, England and Ireland for halal slaughtering by his own butchers

In 1991, after getting authorization for halal slaughtering, he initiated it for livestock in the Vienna Municipality Slaughterhouse. He began to produce halal meat products in 1992. The Macro Group buys livestock, slaughters and sells to wholesale markets and also produces Etsan salami, frankfurters and sucuk (spicy sausages).   

Since their wholesale food space in Vienna’s No. 10 district was small, the Macro Group bought a building with about 3000 square meters of usage area in Vienna’s wholesale market and became the largest wholesale food company in Austria.

Ünal, in addition to the wholesale food business, opened the first supermarket under the name of Etsan in 10th District Vienna in 1997. Presently, the Group has 13 supermarkets in Vienna, varying between 600-1200 square meters in size, as well as three furniture stores. Hüseyin Ünal, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Macro Group, which has 150 employees in wholesale food, meat production and marketing sectors, plans to raise the Group’s 90 million Euro revenues to a total of 130 million Euro by the end of 2008.