In its 81st anniversary, Saray Muhallebicisi still offers the same quality of products and services, and keeps the same passion of generations ago. The real secret behind this passion lies in the words of its founder, Hüseyin Topbaş: "The flavor we love always come first before money." Let’s all admit that in today’s rapidly changing world, we rarely come across such an example of stability, transferred from one generation to the others. Saray Muhallebicisi is one of the most powerful brands in Turkey that has successfully managed to do that. The story of Saray Muhallebicisi begins in Fındıklı, with the business initiative of Çavuş Brothers in 1860’s. It evolves into a success story, when the pudding shop in Kasımpaşa opened by Hüseyin Topbaş in 1935 moves to Beyoğlu in 1949. As the company is celebrating its 81st anniversary this year, it is no secret how it has maintained its flavor quality over the years. Today every member of the family business, starting from the 2nd and 3rd generation management to the delivery employees, pertain to the brand’s core values. THE BIGGEST HERITAGE: “DO NOT SELL ANYTHING YOU WON’T EAT YOURSELF” Today Saray Muhallebicisi is more than just a pudding shop. The brand works hard to maintain the flavor quality of each product in its menu, including more than a hundred of different tastes. As most of the giant brands have to deal with competitors in the market who copy their original products and make them look outdated as they can be found everywhere, Saray Muhallebicisi breaks this chain by successfully keeping its principles steady, unharmed and unchanged. We talked with Münevver Topbaş Aydın, General Manager and Board Member of Saray Muhallebicisi, about the main principles of the brand that are never changed since its foundation: “There are two main factors that help us keep the quality of our brand after all these years. One is that we never change the quality of our ingredients and secondly, we work with the best chefs in the field. Our grandfather would say ‘Don’t sell anything that you won’t eat yourself’. We keep doing our business with that vision in mind. Our chefs, branch managers and auditors always conduct quality checks to maintain the quality and taste of our products. That’s how we never lose the best of ourselves.” The brand is very sensitive about its product suppliers as well. Working with suppliers that know how important “quality” is for Saray Muhallebicisi and therefore provide the best products in their hands, the brand manages to keep its flavour stable after all these years. As we all know, Saray Muhallebicisi does not only offer dairy products or puddings. Actually some of the most favorite products in the menu are rice with chicken and chicken soup. In Münevver Topbaş Aydın’s childhood, there were only a few options offered to customers. They would offer omelette, eggs with vegetables or other similar dairy foods together with the chicken products. Münevver Topbaş Aydın’s grandfather would use the rest of chicken meat used for chicken breast puddings to produce other foods such as chicken broth, chicken soup and rice with chicken. Because they wouldn’t let the pudding title in the brand’s name to limit them to only desserts. Today after nearly 80 years, Saray Muhallebicisi has managed to break the limits of a just-pudding restaurant, a place where generally visited by customers during a restricted time of the day, and succeeded to transform into a gathering point for everyone who wants to hang out with their loved ones for longer hours. That change was reflected in the customer feedback. In the periodic customer surveys, participants state they would like to see more options in the menus. The team of Saray Muhallebicisi pay extra attention to these demands by brainstorming for new products to add to the menu. There are of course people who like the new offerings as there are opposite thoughts on new products. STABILITY: HEALTHY GROWTH WITH THE STANDARD QUALITY When asked about the brand strategies, Münevver Topbaş Aydın says the main strategy has always been to keep the stability in quality and services. They have no aggressive growth strategies. They say meeting with customers in the right place and the right time, and establishing long-lasting restaurants as the first choice of consumers are the main targets of the company. Feeling the support of their customers all the time, Aydın says even the slightest recommendation of one customer is very precious for them to consider. Even though Saray Muhallebicisi is only operational in Istanbul today, customer satisfaction surveys show that its brand awareness is bigger. This should not be surprising as the story goes back to 80 years ago. This rare success is like carrying the atom bomb. As the brand awareness grew bigger, the company received a variety of franchise offers from domestic and international corporations. But they declined all so far. Underlining that they are not fully closed to the idea of giving franchises, Aydın continues: “However we are acting selectively in terms of whom we work with. We do not have any partners other than the family. We do our job inside the family, with an exquisite harmony.” She says in case they decide to go on with franchising options, they would be very selective in terms of choosing the companies that they will partner with. In this long journey of Münevver Topbaş Aydın’s grandfather, the mindset has never been on commercial success. When asked about what would be the best advice taken from the story of Saray Muhallebicisi in terms of business and life in general, Aydın said: “My grandfather would keep saying ‘Your products should be good and money comes later.’ We have always stick to that advice.” Saray Muhallebicisi plans to increase the number of its restaurants where they can have direct contact with their customers. It seems the brand is going to keep being a part of life for the next generations to come. Until then, it will continue to operate in 20 locations in Istanbul by touching everyone’s heart and appetite.