Talawakelle Tea Estates receive accredited HACCP certification

Talawakelle Tea Estates Limited (TTEL), one of Sri Lanka's top ranked Regional Plantation Companies on price performance, said last week it had received accredited Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) certification for two of its estates.

The company's Holyrood and Mattakelle estates in the Talawakelle region received their HACCP certificates from Det Norske Veritas (DNV), a global certification agency, in Colombo recently.

Management and staff stand proud after the company received the HACCP certificate.

These are the first accredited HACCP certificates awarded to tea factories in Sri Lanka and the system will ensure food safety for the production of orthodox black tea along the entire production chain from harvesting to the point of dispatch, the statement said.

The Group Manager of Mattakelle estate Saman Edirisinghe said: "Countries such as Japan and members of the European Union (EU) are insisting on a HACCP based Food Safety Management System (FSMS). This certification will help us better promote our teas to foreign markets who are major buyers of our tea. We will ensure our buyers a product which guarantees all international food safety requirements relating to black tea."

The Manager of Holyrood estate Chaminda Senanayake said: "While this certification will be a testament to the excellent FSMS's maintained in our factory, it will also raise the standards of Sri Lanka's tea industry as a whole and prove that the country can authenticate its reputation as an exporter of the finest quality teas in the world with a safe product and accredited certification."

Both estates have already implemented the Japanese 5-S and other Total Quality Management systems which are maintained at high levels, facilitating the receipt of the HACCP certification. Both estates have also received the Akimoto 5-S merit award, while Holyrood estate has won a National Safety Award as well.

The estates have plans to go for other international certifications in the future, Senanayake added.

The company also said that it will continue to invest heavily in developing all its processing centres and implement international FSMS's which will ensure global product, safety and quality standards relating to black tea produced in all its factories.

Holyrood and Mattakelle estates are among the top ten Western High Grown tea estates in the country and jointly count over 1700 employees. Holyrood estate produces 500,000 kilogrammes (kgs) of tea per annum in an area of 345 hectares, while Mattakelle estate produces 800,000 kgs of tea annually in a land area of 340 hectares. The estates' tea is exported mainly to CIS countries, Japan and countries in the EU.

Talawakelle Tea Estates Limited manages 17 tea estates on a collective land extent of 6,500 hectares, spread across three climatic regions. Over 80 per cent of the extent cultivated is under tea from which the company produces a mix of low and high grown orthodox black tea amounting to over eight million kgs per annum.

Picture shows the Group Manager of Mattakelle Estate Saman Edirisinghe (sixth from left) and the Manager of Holyrood Estate Chaminda Senanayake (fifth from left) with the senior management team of Talawakelle Tea Estates Limited, after receiving their certificates.