Sri Lanka’s top retailer urges industry to forge new partnerships

Ranjit Page, CEO of Cargills (Ceylon) Ltd, last week, drove home a message which stressed the need for the entire industry to work together to serve Sri Lanka.

He made these comments at the proceedings of the CIM Conference 2007 with a presentation on ‘The Role of the Sri Lankan Retailer’ where he focused on the consumer who is essentially a Sri Lankan.

Cargills own Sri Lanka’s largest supermarket chain in Sri Lanka with 117 outlets spread across 17 districts.

In examining its role, Page noted Cargills approaches the subject from the basis that the fundamental purpose of business is to provide continually improving goods and services for increasing numbers of Sri Lankans at prices that they can afford.

In his presentation Page, exemplified retailers and businesses as a whole, relating its fundamental business to the daunting challenges faced by Sri Lanka in terms of poverty, malnutrition, labour exploitation and acute regional disparity.

He emphasized the need for the industry to evolve and start looking beyond profit margins to identify the needs of the bottom of the pyramid, a market that is 4.5 million large in Sri Lanka.

Page also noted that a visiting officer from an international lending agency revealed that Cargills accounted for 1% of Sri Lanka’s annual national rice production, 1.8% of the fruits and vegetables and 3% of the annual livestock production last year. “Now those are numbers that really matter, a testimony that Cargills is making a difference at national level contributing to national development” Page said. It is his view that if all stakeholders of the retail industry work together the positive impact on the economy would be that much more significant.

Negative perceptions
Page also conceded that as an industry retailers such as Cargills are looked upon as unscrupulous traders. “But look at the competition we have created. Because of us, not just Cargills, but Keells, Arpico, Kings, Laugfs all of us together we have reduced prices through competition,” he added.

The CEO of Cargills, which also manufactures Cargills KIST, Cargills Magic and Cargills Meats added that the company has reached beyond its traditional scope of business to harness the skills of youth in Sri Lanka. “Today we know that it’s the unskilled Middle East worker who fetched the highest foreign remittances to the country. We at Cargills want to take our labour force to the next level to give our youth value and dignity in the labour force in Sri Lanka or abroad,” Page said. He added that the Albert A. Page Institute of Food Business was launched early this year to meet the growing demand for professionals in the food business.