Ceylon Royal Teas awarded quality certificates

Ceylon Royal Teas (Pvt) Ltd (CRT), a leading Sri Lankan value added tea exporter received four international quality certificates, BRC Global Standard Food, HACCP Codex Alimentarius, ISO 22000:2005 and ISO 9001:2000.

Managing Director of the company Jaliya Wickramasuriya received the certificates from President Mahinda Rajapaksa last week at a ceremony at Temple trees. Quality certificates are essential requirements for exports, specially food products to developed countries under new regulations. WTO and WFO have classified tea as a food item.

President Rajapaksa said that CRT reached this milestone within a short period of time. Some time ago when the world introduced new quality barriers on their imports our exporters thought that it would hamper our exports. But today our exporters have proved that they can face the challenges, he said.

Tea was the main income source of the country in the past and today there is intense competition in the world tea trade. We have lost even the "Ceylon Tea" brand name and now it is owned by a foreign company Brooke Bond.

We have to develop new brands, penetrate new markets where coffee is the popular drink and promote our tea as CRT is doing, the President said.

CRT's main market is North American countries, Australia, Japan and France.

Wickramasuriya said that this new standard certificates would boost its exports because now the company can directly supply its products to the main supermarket chains of these countries.

CRT has been in tea exports for 26 years and at the beginning it exported bulk tea through tea brokers. In 1999 it started value addition and opened a factory at the Homagama industrial park. The company also launched a promotion campaign in North American countries and opened its first marketing base in Atlanta, USA. Since CRT did not have the quality certificates it had to supply its products to the main supermarket chains in North America through brokers, Wickramasuriya said.

"We did see the market potential in countries where tea was not popular and our promotion campaign was successful and the demand increased. Today people in these countries are very conscious about health hazards and there is an increasing demand for natural and organic food. These are huge markets with a large population who are used to coffee", Wickramasuriya said. He said that Sri Lankan exporters need a more efficient service from our foreign missions abroad to promote our products and get information of rapidly changing markets.

(GW)