Thai Sumedha Enterprises recognized at National Industry Excellence Awards

Thai Sumedha Enterprises leading manufacturers distributors and exporters of hand rolled, machine made, hand dipped incense sticks, incense powder and incense products was awarded a special achievement industry excellence award at the National Industry Excellence Awards recently.

The award was presented by Minister of Industries Wimal Weerawansa at BMICH recently where President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was the Chief Guest.

This was in recognition of introducing import substitutes and elevating the local incense stick industry to the level of international scale. Thai Sumedha was also recognized and rewarded at the Janabhimani Honorary Awards in 2018 and also many other accolades both locally and internationally.

Founder of Thai Sumedha, Sumeda Elpitiya recalled that he was the owner of the textile and garment showroom in Ratnapura and during his many visits to Thailand to purchase merchandise a taxi drive took him to a remote temple in Thailand where he came across a Sri Lankan Buddhist monk who persuaded him to diversify towards the manufacture of incense sticks.

“I then visited several Thai incense sticks manufacturers and obtained the technical knowhow and started manufacturing in a rented house in Kotte in 1989 with two employees against the advice of many as this profession was looked down upon by the then society.”

He said that at the time incense sticks were sold for around Rs. 8 a packet and when he first went to Bellanwila temple and offered his products at the rate of Rs. 13 he was virtually chased away by the traders.

“Then I gave my products free to these traders and told them to display it at Rs. 13.50 (profit Rs. 2) and when I returned after one month all were sold and traders were behind me asking for more.I must also thank the then Cornel Supermarket purchasing manager for accepting my products which helped to move it to other high profile shops.

“Our continued dedication with what we do has enabled us to win the award for the Best Local Product in 1992, from the Industrial Development Board of Sri Lanka which was the first recognition for my hard work. Today we export to many countries like the USA, UK, Europe, Australia, Canada and are now looking at the Asian markets as well to bring dollars to Sri Lanka.My production has also helped over 300 local manufactures to increase the quality of their products for which I am happy.

“However, while we face an issue for importing some raw material due to the ‘dollar crunch’ we also see some neighboring manufactures entering this manufacturing business in Sri Lanka using unhealthy practices. This will have a negative impact on over 350 local manufactures and this is an area that the government should look at. If they are in a level playing field we are ok, but currently they are given several undue advantages.”