Jiffy Products Sri Lanka, manufacturing and exporting of coco/coir base plant propagation grow media, mainly to Europe, USA, Canada, Mexico, India, Africa, Japan and more than other 40 countries, have opened up a new area of business for Sri Lanka, to bring in valuable forex to Sri Lanka.
The company’s core strategy is to add value to the raw material (coir fiber pith and husk chips), rather than exporting this valuable resource as unprocessed bulk material. Its products include a comprehensive line of Coco based products, market as renewable environmentally friendly solution: Jiffy Pellets, Grow blocks, Grow bags, Coco Discs and Coco Plates.
“This industry globally, was created around a decade ago and back in Sri Lanka coconut husk drop outs were virtually thrown away or used as fertilizer in a disorganized manner,” said Managing Director of Jiffy Products Sri Lanka, Ruwan Rajapakse.
Jiffy Products Sri Lanka, was incorporated in the year 2003 as a BOI venture at the Mirigama Export Processing Zone, mainly to utilize coconut husk drop outs in a more organized manner for export to be used for the Agri sector.
By 2019, the company established four manufacturing facilities in Mirigama, Pannala and Kobeigane, with a total investment over Rs. 2.5 billion. “Today, the company has provided about 10,000 direct and indirect employment, adding a new product to the Sri Lankan export basket.”
“We annually invests over Rs. 800 million in the rural economy for raw material purchases and employment purposes and a further Rs. 200 million to the service sector in Sri Lanka.”
Jiffy Products is one of the prime examples of how value addition could create new business opportunities for exporters in Sri Lanka.
“Our R&D team is a key pillar of success. We have introduced several new value-added coco products that compete in the global market and account to over 60% of the global market share.”
The company has distinguished itself as Sri Lanka’s highest value-added producer of coconut-based agriculture products and as manufacturer of the worlds only ISO 22,000 certified grow media and this is the reason.
These achievements saw Jiffy Products Sri Lanka, being crowned ‘Winner’ in the Manufacturing (Large) Category at the prestigious Sri Lanka National Quality Awards recently.
The company has been able to pioneer an improving number of its processes to be more efficient, sustainable and environmentally friendly. “This innovative mechanism which is again the only one of its kind in the industry, is operating with the 3R (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) concept which had given opportunity to reduce the ingredients usage in the process, to reuse treated effluent back in the process, biological de-nitrification of discharges and recycle the final outcome in compost manufacturing.”
He also said that they had also given emphasis on environmental concerns, green concepts and their new international head office was designed to use minimum electricity which prompted it to win an award.
Globally, there is a new trend emerging where even children are engaged in home gardening from their Montessori stage and this has also created additional demand for our products which acts as a pot to plans seeds. However, back in Sri Lanka, home gardening among children are low.
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| Some of the staff |
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| Jiffy Products Mirigama Export Processing Zone complex. Pictures by Sudath Malaweera |
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