What is wrong with our ailing tea industry and where does its cure lie?
Monday, 21 March 2016
At a panel discussion following an evening presentation organised by the Institute of Certified Professional Managers or CPM in Colombo last week, a questioner from the audience put an interesting poser to Anil Cooke, CEO of Asia Siyaka, a leading tea brokering company in the city.
The questioner, apparently dismayed by the current gloomy situation faced by the country’s tea industry, asked Cooke: “Why should I invest in Sri Lanka’s tea plantations?” Cooke was quick to correct the questioner before answering his question. He said: “Tea should not be taken as a plantation crop or even an industry. It should be viewed as a beverage. It faces all the problems which any beverage faces and its salvation too lies in the salvation of beverages in a global sense.”
Cooke here has looked at tea from a wide angle, an angle which many concerned about it normally miss out. However, Cooke’s wide angle can be developed further into a wider angle. In that wider angle, tea is not only a beverage, but also an essential ingredient for manufacturing medicines, cosmetics and perfumes – three industries which are growing faster than the growth of the global output.
Tea marketing in Sri Lanka is still where it was left by British planters
Tea should have a wider angle than a mere beverage
Monday, 21 March 2016
At a panel discussion following an evening presentation organised by the Institute of Certified Professional Managers or CPM in Colombo last week, a questioner from the audience put an interesting poser to Anil Cooke, CEO of Asia Siyaka, a leading tea brokering company in the city. The questioner, apparently dismayed by the current gloomy situation faced by the country’s tea industry, asked Cooke: “Why should I invest in Sri Lanka’s tea plantations?” Cooke was quick to correct the questioner before answering his question. He said: “Tea should not be taken as a plantation crop or even an industry. It should be viewed as a beverage. It faces all the problems which any beverage faces and its salvation too lies in the salvation of beverages in a global sense.”
Cooke here has looked at tea from a wide angle, an angle which many concerned about it normally miss out. However, Cooke’s wide angle can be developed further into a wider angle. In that wider angle, tea is not only a beverage, but also an essential ingredient for manufacturing medicines, cosmetics and perfumes – three industries which are growing faster than the growth of the global output.
Tea marketing in Sri Lanka is still where it was left by British planters
