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Sri
Lanka’s potential to process herbal and fruit teas Wirth, a 25 year-old veteran in this trade and Director, Exports of Martin Bauer GmbH & Co, Germany, the world leader in Industrial Production in Herbs, made these comments to The Sunday Times FT after he addressed a cross section of the tea community in Sri Lanka in Colombo last week. He said that few in Sri Lanka are involved in processing herbal teas, but the potential is huge as this would be one of the major ways of value adding and it could be done easily due to the cost factor. He said that in Germany the economic conditions are such that labour costs are very high. Wirth said that Sri Lanka is also well equipped with about 400 machines available for processing herbal teas. He said that it is not the major brands under which Sri Lankan processed tea could be marketed, but there are major supermarket chains which sell under their own brands and it is this market that Sri Lankan herbal teas should focus on. He said that if these could be manufactured here it would be half the price and noted that the market would be huge – in hundreds of tons. Wirth said that compared to black tea consumption, the herbal tea consumption globally has a huge difference. While the world consumption of herbal teas stand at 70,000 tons, in Britain alone the black and green tea consumption stands at a massive 60,000 tons while in the Middle East people are heavy black tea drinkers. Wirth said that they are campaigning to attract some of these customers. He told the tea community that his company, established in 1930, is the market leader in the products they sell with production at 45,000 tons and the annual turnover at 400 million Euros. There are 2,000 employees worldwide working for Bauer. It has subsidiaries in several other countries including China. Out of 70,000 tonnes of herbal teas produced in the world last year, 38,132 tonnes -- more than half the world requirement -- is processed by Bauer in Germany. In Germany herbal teas are popular and there is a tremendous market. Bauer offers a variety of herbal teas, such as peppermint, fennel, rosehips etc. In Germany consumption ratio of flavoured blends are higher than non-flavoured blends and in comparison to black tea, 64 percent consume herbal teas. But in Britain the herbal tea ratio would be less than one percent and it is like 2,000 herbal teas compared to 150,000 black tea. He said that herbal teas cannot be compared to black or green teas. In herbal teas there is the danger of insects getting in and therefore a effective cleaning process to eliminate insects is in place and the type of cleaning facilities are available with Bauer. Another major danger is the microbiological contamination with the salmonella problem that is rising. The drying process of teas differ from country to country and when they are dried in the open air, birds could over-fly and their dirt could contaminate. Bauer has invested millions of dollars to kill salmonella and in the process it is working efficiently. Salmonella is not found in any of their products for the last two years. The Martin Bauer quality control system has acquired several ISO accreditations and are certified to produce organic products which are increasingly allowed in the market. The quality parameters in European and Germany are stringent and the physical parameters such as density, particle size, air content, microbiological contamination, pesticides are very important as they have to be checked and eliminated. In quality agreements Bauer would enter into agreements with their customers and determine each single parameter. There
are branded products in 60 countries in the world and these are
subjected to most severe limitations in each of these countries.
Unlike black or green tea. herbal teas have to fulfill different
criteria in different countries. |
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