Periyannan’s nest egg at Bamba keeps growing
BAMBALAPITIYA – In the case of Desapillai Periyannan the egg came first, 20,000 eggs to be exact – the number he sells every day to restaurants, bakeries as well as customers who walk in off the street and into the Colombo Egg Centre in Bambalapitiya.
Ready for distribution
“The egg changed my life,” says the proprietor of one of the biggest wholesale outlets for eggs in Colombo. “I knew a lot about eggs when I was a young man working for a small grocery store and I went into this wholesale business as it didn’t need a lot on investment. I’m happy I did it.”
An ethnic Indian Tamil who hails from Galaha, Kandy, Periyannan arrived in the city in the 60s as a penniless 15-year-old to find the streets of Colombo not paved with gold. The first few years was just nose to the grindstone hard work – before he arrived at 140 Bullers Road, a place which would change his life forever.
“There were 10 to 12 rooms in a small house and I shared a room with a relative of mine. One day I thought this would be an ideal place to sell eggs as it was so central, so I began on a small scale, selling 200 to 300 eggs a day from my room,” Periyannan related.
It was 1970 when he took this gamble, buying a crate of eggs from a lorry which use to come every morning on Galle Road and then selling it to small ‘kades’ and shops with a slight mark-up.
Business boomed as demand never flagged. Gradually Periyannan increased the number of eggs he was buying and soon decided to source it at the farm itself. From his earnings, he started buying out the other lease on the other rooms – “I needed space to expand” – and soon made an irresistible offer of 50,000 rupees per perch for the 10-perch block on which the house was built.
“I bought that in 1977 and then about 10 years later bought an adjoining block where there was a garage on about 15 perches of land,” says Periyannan.
Combined, it became the Colombo Egg Centre. It wasn’t all smooth sailing, however. During the 1983 riots, looters burned his property, but despite the trauma, it was business as usual for the demand for eggs never dipped, people still loved their half-boiled and omelettes.
In the short time I’m there, business is brisk. The Police Mess needs 600 eggs – every two days – and the order is dealt even before you can say ‘Hora-Police’. Nawaloka Hospital is one of the biggest customers – 6,000 eggs every week. A similar number goes to Royal Bakery in Wellawatte.
This week the prices are 11 rupees a white egg and 12.50 a brown egg for purchases of over 300 eggs. If you buy less than 100 eggs, it is 12 and 14 rupees respectively.
So, what is the difference between brown and white eggs? “None,” smiles Periyannan.
Rows of eggs Pix.by M.A.Pushpa Kumara
A lady in a posh car arrives and buys 100 eggs. Must be for a wedding cake, or else her family is in for an eggs-tra-ordinary breakfast.
Periyannan sources his eggs from two farms in Kuliyapitiya and Bingiriya. He buys around 600,000 eggs a month. At what price? He smiles. He is contented. Although having branched into other businesses – a sari emporium at Pettah as well as selling virgin coconut oil – eggs are his core business.
“Because of eggs, I’m sitting on property worth millions of rupees,” Periyannan proudly points out. Egg-cellent for a man who came to Colombo with just a couple of rupees in his pocket.