Posted: April 1, 2008
Post Expires: October 1, 2008

Ceylonka (Pvt) Ltd

The pineapples cultivated in a district in Sri Lanka are among the fruitiest on earth. That is the conclusion the former head of the Pineapple Research Institute of Hawaii came to under a USAID (United States Agency for International Development) contract.

20,000 acres are available in the district to grow the fruits to make juice concentrate. The cost of production will be at least 50% below Thailand.  

The 1.76 million acres in the district take up 11% of the island's area and the 20,000 acres are just 1.1% of it. The sparsely populated area consists of national parks and dry shrub mostly. The politically troubled north of the island is about 10 hours' drive from the district. Hence the security there is not an issue.

Most of its 400,000+ people there live in abject poverty and 39% of the children under 5 are malnourished. The economic boost resulting from the project is expected bring that percentage down to less than 5%. From a humanitarian standpoint, that aspect augments the enormous profits the venture will generate.

Thailand, holding a 16.5% global share in the world market is the world's leading exporting country of pineapple juice-concentrate. When fruits of identical weight are considered, the Hawaiian expert established that the same quantity of juice concentrate could be made from 2 fruits grown in the district as the quantity now made from 3 Thai pineapples. One of largest plants in the world will therefore be built in Sri Lanka to export juice-concentrate.

Thai Agricultural workers earn about 40.3% more than Sri Lankan agricultural workers. That is an advantage in Sri Lanka in addition to using 33% less fruit-flesh to make an identical quantity of juice concentrate. Hence the cost of production of pineapple juice-concentrate in the district will be at least 50% less than in Thailand.

Contact Information:
Peter Dias
CEO
Ceylonka (Pvt) Ltd
70B/1 Rattanapitiya
Boralesgamuwa Sri Lanka
94 714 350 943
94 112 820 386