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By Shirajiv Sirimane

The Founder and Chairman, Dilmah Tea, Merrill Fernando said that Dilmah Tea is ranked as number three in the world. He said that 95% of Sri Lankan tea exports are in bulk form mainly for overseas multi national companies. Sri Lanka can easily earn more foreign exchange and offer more job opportunities and better living conditions for the estate workers if tea can be exported in value-addition form. "What we are now doing is supplying tea as a raw material and making rich countries richer and the poor countries poorer," he said.

Mr. Fernando who has been in the tea business since 1954 said that he wanted to change this concept by introducing Dilmah tea to the world as a 100% Sri Lankan product. "We buy our tea from the Colombo Tea Auction and do the value addition under strict ISO conditions at our Peliyagoda factory and export it."

He said that the company first exported their products to Australia and it was a major success. The Chairman said that initially they spent $ 3 million to build this factory in 1985 which has been ranked the seventh largest in the world.

For the first time Dilmah Tea, which has been marketed with success in around 90 countries since its launch in 1985, enters the Sri Lankan market this month, opening a new chapter in the history of tea in Sri Lanka.

In October 2001 Dilmah Tea sponsored the Sri Lanka Cricket Team, bringing together this country's finest exports - cricket and tea. This contract expires in October 2004. The chairman said that after this sponsorship almost every Sri Lankan knew about Dilmah Tea but the product was not available in the local market. "This was a major reason for us to put some of our products to the local market."

He said that one of the main reasons why they opted to be out of the local market was that many 'small timers' were engaged in the tea business for a long time. "If Dilmah was to enter the Sri Lanka market in full scale these small timers would have faced severe problems. This is why even now we are not putting out our entire range into the local market."

Sri Lankan consumers will now be offered four distinctive Teas, crafted to pamper local taste preferences - Dilmah Strong, Dilmah Vanilla Tea Dilmah Ginger Tea and Dilmah Premium. The Company will market their products in Sri Lanka through a partnership with Hemas Marketing.

"Our factory has been certified for compliance with the most rigorous quality and safety standards and has the leading edge in technology. We are the only company to use a special tea cleaning machine at a cost of Rs. 20 million to take out the dust, stones, metals and other objects from tea before it is being packed. We are also the only exporting company in Sri Lanka to pack our products according to the Hazards Analyst of Critical Points (HAACP) system and produce around five million cups of tea every day, in teabags and packets."

The Chairman said that Dilmah is the only tea which is vacuum packed and the most expensive in the world market today.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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