GRI producing performance-driven sustainable speciality tyres
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Dr. Mahesha Ranasoma
GRI, focusing on agriculture, construction and material handling industries; produces high-performance speciality tyres that have exceeded customer expectations.
A Sri Lankan company with offices in nine countries and sales in over 50 countries around the world, GRI has established a sound global footprint, it said in a media release.
GRI has focused its innovation on designs and compounds, developing novel tread designs and advanced compounds that give a higher performance for the same cost. This has enabled GRI to serve customers better, creating demand for its products in both solid and pneumatic specialty tyres and resulting in an expansion of production capacity, the release said.
Having built a strong reputation in industrial material handling solid tyres since 2002, GRI has in recent years expanded its scope to include a range of agriculture and construction tyres. To this end, a new factory equipped with the latest technology was built in Sri Lanka and commissioned in 2018, with this being the first stage of a major capacity expansion project. Since then, over 400 new specialty tyres have been launched in the new production plant.
“GRI utilises premium-quality pure natural rubber from Sri Lanka, which ranks among the top five natural rubber producing nations in the world. We also use other advanced raw material components to produce high-grade specialty tyres,” said Dr. Mahesha Ranasoma, company CEO.
He points out that the tyres are all manufactured in Sri Lanka and sold in international markets, with the key territories being the US and Europe. “These markets are mostly serviced by our distributors, but we also have our own subsidiaries to foster closer relationships with our clients,” he added.
GRI ensures its commitment to sustainability and environmental protection by the way the company develops new products, generates its power, builds its tyres, recycles waste, and manages its water systems.
While natural rubber is a renewable commodity, in an industry where demand is disproportionately large, sustainability in sourcing is of foremost importance. GRI sources pure natural rubber from Sri Lankan farmers and plantations around the island, the release said.
This natural rubber, which is sourced from smallholder rubber farmers in Sri Lanka to build GRI’s high-grade agriculture tyres, which are eventually fitted on the machinery of farmers across the world, creates a unique value chain that begins and ends from one farmer to another.
This is the principle of the company’s GREEN X Circle, a global farmer ecosystem connecting natural rubber farmers with crop farmers worldwide. Through this initiative connectivity and collaboration are fostered between the two farming ecosystems while placing emphasis on sustainability principles. While enhancing the opportunities for rubber farmers in Sri Lanka and helping to implement sustainable practices in rubber tree farming and tapping to improve productivity and yields, the value to crop farmers around the world is also significant – they get agricultural tyres produced using the finest natural rubber that minimises soil compaction and helps produce higher yields.
“This unique initiative is really important to us. The GREEN X Circle is conceptually a unique proposition to help farmers be environmentally sustainable, connecting natural rubber farmers and crop farmers, the two key farming communities in our supply chain,” says Dr Ranasoma.
Emerging from last year on a firm footing, GRI began 2021 on a positive note – the company laid the foundation stone for the second phase of a US$100 million project with a new manufacturing facility in Badalgama, Sri Lanka. The facility will expand its specialty tyre production plant inaugurated three years ago, in order to meet growing global demand for its branded products and is expected to be completed by December 2021. GRI’s mandate to embed sustainability as a part of all its operations is reiterated in its new production facility.