Sri Lanka’s sugar industry to be developed in future
Plans are afoot to grow sugar cane in Sri Lanka on a large scale apart from importing and distributing sugar. “We are investing US$15 million for storage and distributing sugar in the country to benefit consumers,” said Pyramid’s Wilmar’s Sri Lanka Managing Director, Sajjad Mawzoon at the launch of the new Meadowlea fat spread held at the Cinnamon Lake Side Hotel in Colombo.
He said Meadowlea, for the first time outside its birthplace of Australia and New Zealand, is to be produced in Sri Lanka to be exported to the neighbouring countries in the region. He said it took nearly two years for them to launch the new Meadowlea spread in Sri Lanka to suit the local palate.
Pyramid Wilmar, the company behind Sri Lanka’s edible oil product – Fortune, launched the new Meadowlea spread of Goodman Fielder Australia, one of Australia’s favourite spreads. The locally manufactured Meadowlea was tested among Sri Lankan consumers and adheres to the highest international and local quality standards.
Goodman Fielder Australia, a company with over a century of excellence in the food industry, is an associate company of Pyramid Wilmar Pvt Ltd. Pyramid Wilmar is also a shareholder of the Shangri-La Hotel projects in Sri Lanka and have entered into a strategic partnership with Sunshine Holdings and Tata Global Beverages to jointly own Estate Management Services (Pvt) Ltd, the holding company of Watawala Plantations Plc and Watawala Tea Ceylon Ltd.
Regional Head of Wilmar International Pratheepan Karunagaran said that Wilmar was founded in 1991 and was based in Singapore, one of the leading agri businesses in Asia that includes edible oil, palm cultivation sugar milling and manufacture of consumer products, fertilisers, and flour milling, etc. “We are a multinational company with a work force of 90,000 people with 500 food manufacturing companies in more than 50 countries globally. Our entry to Sri Lanka was in 2004 with a small vegetable refinery at Moneragala.”
Pyramid Wilmar’s Group Head of Commercial Thanveer Siddique said that his company has been able to put forward affordable international products to the Sri Lanka market during the last 10- 12 years. The company’s core business activities involves refining of edible oil, making industrial margarine, manufacturing of edible oil, tourism and providing sugar to the Sri Lankan market.