Aurganica Beverage targets Euro 90,000 forex from king coconut water exports
Source:-dailynews
Aurganica Beverage Company targets over Euro 90,000 annual forex income from king coconut water exports, Nihal Perera, Managing Director, Aurganica Beverages Company (Private) Limited said.
“Since 2013 we have been exporting our value-added products to Germany, USA, Australia and other Middle Eastern countries with remarkable appreciation from foreign buyers.”
“By now our regular export value is Rs 85 million and with the opening of the new Piliyandala factory this year we are targeting to increase this by 150 %. The new factory can process 20,000 king coconuts a day,” he said.
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A mechanical engineer by profession Perera served top companies before forming his own company. In 1990 he joined
Nihal Perera
Renuka Group of Companies and worked with Dr. S. R.Rajiah then Managing Director of Coco Lanka, Jaela.
“As the first factory manager, general manager along with the project manager I selected machinery required for expelling coconuts milk, pasteurizing, automatic canning and seaming line to create the first ever coconut milk canning factory in Sri Lanka.”
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“I served them for 10 years and gained many achievements such as the Presidential award for the year 1994/1995 for the food export sector to the company during my tenure in service.”
“I was then invited by Ranjith Wickremasinghe, former MD of Ceylon Biscuits and Wichy Plantation Company, to join them as General Manager/ Director at Wichy Plantation Company to develop new coconut based products.”
“After extensive experiments and research carried out at the Homagama factory in 2005 we managed to export when nobody thought of exporting king coconut water to Europe in 2006.
He founded Aurganica (private) limited in 2011 to share his expertise to a novel value added organic king coconut water products while providing more than 20 direct employment as well as over 200 persons indirect employment accesses.
He said Agriculture and Plantation Minister Mahinda Amaraweera had tasted one of his bottled king coconut water at his Ministry and commented that its taste was superb and natural.
“I requested the Minister for factory space in an industrial estate in and around Homagama. The minister responded positively to my request.”
“In appreciation of these achievements my company was selected to represent Sri Lanka by the Export Development Board and GIZ in the world’s biggest organic foods and beverage trade fair in 2018 – Biofach in Germany.
“In June 2018 I represented Sri Lanka in the Belt Road Trade Fair in Hong Kong.”
He appreciated the assistance given by Gayani IndunilaWijayathilake, Assistant Director Export Agriculture Division.
