F&S Flavor Tea to invest Rs 700 m on warehouse

Shirajiv SIRIMANE

F&S Flavor Tea, a subsidiary of MOS Lanka Holdings Company, will invest Rs.700 million to build a warehouse and to expand their global award winning tea packing product portfolio. Chairman, of the company, Dr. Saman Weerasinghe, said they had already singed a BOI agreement and had also obtained a four and half acre land in Mulleriyawa for this purpose.

He said they would be moving their packing plant from Peliyagoda to this new facility by the end of October this year and would also offer space for foreign companies. “Two Singaporean companies have already requested for space to start businesses in Sri Lanka,” he said.

Weerasinghe also said that they would be reinvesting in new machinery to meet the global demand for their brand which was re launched 18 months ago. “We would also be using new energy efficient systems like solar power and our new plant would be more environmental friendly and greener.”

He said that they would also be launching their third brand by the end of this year. Several Sri Lankans who are using their products overseas have requested them to make their product portfolio available in Sri Lanka. “Hence we have now decided to open a Tea House at the Southern Highway restaurant (on route to Colombo) which would be opened on September 15. “This while selling our products would also serve F&S tea.”

He said that they do value addition to tea and export them with Sri Lankan identity, (under the Lion logo) bringing foreign exchange to the country. “We purchase tea from auctions and then, after value addition re-export them mainly to China, Europe and Russia,” he said. The chairman said that the response for F&S products in China is amazing as over 20 tea kiosks in China serve exclusively our brands only.

While tea is their core business, the company had also diversified to the leisure sector and is currently building a boutique type luxury hotel, Michelle in Balapitiya which would also be opened end of this year. “We had acquired a decapitated hotel, bought adjoining land and had done a complete overhaul to build this hotel.”

The main market would be the Russian and the marketing arm would be MOS Lanka Holdings which is also famous in Russia. Deluxe travels which organize in- bound tours to Sri Lanka would also market this hotel. He said that currently they are operating the biggest education consultation company in Russia which offers consultation to over 20 global companies.