Samaposha to fight malnutrition

The newly completed state-of-the-art Samaposha factory of Plenty Foods (Pvt) Ltd in Pallekele was opened by Deputy Chairman, Ceylon Biscuits Limited (CBL) Ramya Wickramasingha recently.

A subsidiary of Ceylon Biscuits Limited, Plenty Foods (Pvt) Ltd. is the manufacturer of Samaposha, the first locally processed high nutrition cereal for children and adults.

Plenty Foods (Pvt) Ltd is an agro based entity that is committed to produce a range of high quality nutritious food products using locally grown agricultural produce, at affordable prices ensuring customer satisfaction and acceptability through maximum utilisation of the Company's dry-zone farmer base.

The Pallekele factory is the central processing unit where the agricultural produce such as green-gram, soya, rice and corn grown by more than 12,000 dry-zone farmers are processed.

The factory, the first of its kind in Sri Lanka, where the entire production process, commencing from the processing of raw materials to packaging of finished products is entirely automated to ensure high quality to maintain international health and safety standards.

An industry expert said, "With the global economy still experiencing the effects of recession and with speculation about an impending universal food crisis, as a nation with potential for agricultural development, Sri Lanka should focus on researching and developing intelligent agricultural solutions. Samaposha developing wholesome food products and supporting the sustenance of the farmer community of this country is commendable".

A spokesman for Plenty Foods said, "The peak performance of this factory will hopefully revolutionise agro based food processing making Sri Lanka a key supplier of high nutrition foods to the SAARC countries, exploring export markets leading to eradicate malnutrition in the region.

The factory will bring-in multiple benefits - maximum utilisation of agri land, enhanced income for farmers and foreign exchange earnings".

He also said that plans are under way to introduce new production methods to maximise capacity utilisation where the monthly production of Samaposha will be increased to 1200 metric tons.