Jiffy Products Sri Lanka (JPSL), the Sri Lankan subsidiary of Jiffy International AS Kristiansand, Norway today announced that the company has won the Gold Award in the Agriculture Value Added – Large Sector under Coconut and Coconut based products category at the recently concluded National Chamber of Exporters Export Awards 2013, for the second consecutive year. 

Since 2009 JPSL has been constantly picking up accolades in the Agriculture Value Added sector with 2012 marking the first time the company won Gold. In 2009 the company won Silver in the Extra Large Category, while in 2010 JPSL won Silver in the Medium Category. At the 2011 NCE Awards the company walked away with the Bronze award in the Large Category.

Speaking about winning this award Mr. Sandeeptha Gamalath, Managing Director, JPSL said, “Winning this award this year is extra special for us as it marks the second consecutive year that we been awarded Gold in this category, which is reaffirmation of our commitment to delivering the best possible products to our export customers. We will strive to raise the bar even higher this year and maintain our winning position next year.”

The company has always placed a high focus on quality and as such has obtained several quality standard certifications to this effect. The company has in place ISO 9001:2008 – Quality Management System, ISO 14001:2004 – Environment Management System, ISO 18001:2007 – Occupational Health and Safety Management System, the RHP quality mark by the European Certification Institute for the Agricultural Sector (ECAS BV) and are working towards SA 8000 - an auditable certification standard that encourages organizations to develop, maintain, and apply socially accountable practices in the workplace.

In 2004 JPSL started its first commercial operations with two Jiffy-7 machines and today has grown to eight Jiffy-7 machines with a production capacity of 180 million Jiffy-7C pellets. Currently JPSL has over 150 permanent employees and about 700 seasonal employees. Its total investment in Sri Lanka stands at approximately Rs.1.3 billion as at today.

The company has also contributed significantly to the Sri Lankan agriculture sector with multiple extension programs in association with several government, non-government and private sector institutions. Some of these projects include maintaining the county’s most successful plantation for hybrid seed coconut with the collaboration of the Sri Lanka Coconut Research Institute where there is coconut cultivation with several new hybrid coconut varieties in the fruiting stage and introducing the Jiffy 7C pellet for the propagation of planting material through the latest plant propagation technologies to the local farming sector. The company also has a model plant house and a model plantation spread over 35 acres of land to demonstrate how better growers can utilize farm lands for agriculture and what cost effective methods they can use to maximize their production.

More recently the company supplied 12 million pellets to the Economic Development Ministry’s Divi Neguma programme under the guidance of Hon. Basil Rajapaksa and also works closely with the Department of Agriculture to provide farmers with new agricultural technology that will help them improve their cost and efficiency while helping to cultivate a better produce. Jiffy is also involved in several other projects with the Tea Research Institute, Coconut Research Institute and the Department of Agriculture.

In addition to its operations in Mirigama, in 2006 JPSL started its own coir fiber pith processing plant at Pannala and in 2009 opened an Engineering Center of Excellence which would cater the requirements of the entire Jiffy group in providing Engineering Services to upgrade and maintain the Jiffy Group’s core competence in the product lines. Later in 2010 JPSL expanded its coir substrate production capacity by constructing a state-of-the-art coir substrate processing plant in Kobeigane in the Kurunegala District. With this increase in substrate capacity JPSL ventured into other Coir substrate product lines such as Jiffy Grow Blocks, Jiffy Coco Discs and Jiffy Grow Bags.

Jiffy Products Sri Lanka (JPSL) was incorporated in 2003 as a BOI venture with the intention of taking advantage of the availability of coir fiber pith which was gaining popularity all over the world as a versatile plant propagation and growth media. JPSL pumps over Rs. 500 million to the rural economy in terms of raw material purchases and employment (Rs. 350 million for raw material purchases from fiber mills and village level suppliers and Rs. 150 million for employment) and further Rs. 100 million to the service sector of 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. 

Photo captions: (Top) Mr. Sandeeptha Gamalath, Managing Director, JPSL (Right) receiving the Gold Award for the Agriculture Value Added – Large Category from Mr. Sarath De Silva - Chairman International Food Stuff Co Agri Bio Tech (pvt) Ltd, Past President of the NCE. Others in the picture are Mr. Sugath Gunasekera - Deputy General Manager - (Corporate & Offshore Banking) Bank of Ceylon and Mr. Geoffery Tillekeratne - Director Member Services – NCE and (Bottom) the Jiffy Products Team at the awards ceremony