Indian biscuit market leader, Britannia Industries is looking at strengthening its international presence by entering new markets such as Sri Lanka which it says is one of the largest biscuit consuming countries in Asia.

The country’s per capita biscuit consumption is in the region of 4 kg, much higher than India at 1.1 kg and Indonesia at 1.6 kg. Addressing a media conference convened in Colombo to announce the launch of Britannia biscuits in Sri Lanka on Tuesday, Vice President of New Business Development of Britannia Industries Ltd, Atul Sinha said that his company plans to capture a sizable market stake in the country’s highly competitive biscuit production industry. The volume of biscuit consumption in Sri Lanka is 43,964 metric tons per annum and its value is around Rs.17.76 billion.

Ceylon Biscuits Ltd (Munchee) is the market leader with 62 % of market share and Maliban is second with 28 %, he said, adding that that “Sri Lanka is a country with tremendous scope for both the biscuit industry and investors”. (QP)

The company has also commenced local manufaturing operations at the Luckyland Biscuit factory owned by the family of the world class spin wizard Muttiah Muralitharan at Kundasale in Kandy. Britannia Industries Ltd has invested in upgrading and modernizing the Kandy factory and they have imported state of the art machinery including high speed packing machines to make Britannia biscuits locally, he said.

The Luckyland factory force has tripled since Britannia’s manufcturing process began. The factory also houses special laboratory facilities, supervised by Britannia’s own experts , to check the quality parameters of ingredients and finished products. Britannia is imported and distributed in Sri Lanka by J. L. Morison Son and Jones (Ceylon) Ltd.